


each lovely phrase

by Eremji (handsfullofdust)



Series: strange addiction [1]
Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Sex, Anxiety, Consensual Slut Shaming, Crying, Dirty Talk, Discussion of Child Sexual Assault, Discussions of violence, Domesticity, Epistolary Elements, Everybody Lives, Explicit Sexual Content, Gender Play, Guilt, Internalized Homophobia, Light Spanking, M/M, Medication, Mentions of PTSD, Original Character(s), Past Sexual Abuse, Phone Sex, Religious Discussion, Rimming, Sexting, Size Difference, Size Kink, Texting, Therapy, Trauma, Undernegotiated Kink, actually really soft, consensual feminization, horror pairing but make it romance, misogynistic language, smut thinly disguised as a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25509340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handsfullofdust/pseuds/Eremji
Summary: Eddie Gluskin, 46, survives Mount Massive Asylum against all odds. What he doesn't expect is kindness.Waylon’s straight hair has grown out, dark at the crown of his head, the tips still blonde and just beginning to curl around his ears. He approaches the barrier with a limp and stands with his hands in his pockets, but shows no other visible signs of what happened to him at Mount Massive.He's easily a full foot shorter than Eddie, maybe more, but he stands there watching Eddie with all the fearless self-assurance of a child observing a grizzly bear at the zoo.
Relationships: Eddie Gluskin/Waylon Park
Series: strange addiction [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848673
Comments: 70
Kudos: 416





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a romance; it's 2020 y'all and this is the happiest ending to something horrible that I could think of.
> 
> **Please check the tags twice; I've chosen not to use archive warnings but the tags DO apply. This story discusses or references topics that may be disturbing.**
> 
> **Canon contains parent/child CSA: it's is discussed in therapy, but is never described graphically.**
> 
> There's a lot of therapy in here. If you're here from elsewhere: Outlast is a horror game. The violence here is far less graphic than canon, but there are discussions of those extreme horror elements.
> 
> I'm handwaving the canon Ultra Dark Ending because my kink is evil megacorps getting their just desserts. Eddie's crimes before being arrested have been softened a little from canon, because I think it's equally plausible Murkoff's doctors are lying sacks of shit who tortured sick people.
> 
> Title is inspired by [Virgina Woolf's letter in response to Vita Sackville-West.](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/03/09/a-thing-that-wants-virginia/)
> 
> Edited by my dear friend [@B_nes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_nes/profile). Any remaining errors are my own, smuggled back into this document under the cover of darkness.
> 
> Catch me on twitter at [Eremji](https://twitter.com/Eremji)

' _There are so many things I’m not allowed to tell you.  
_ _I touch myself, I dream  
_ _Wearing your clothes or standing in the shower for over an hour, pretending  
_ _that this skin is your skin, these hands your hands_ '  
\- Richard Siken ‘ _Dirty Valentine_ ’

*

Eddie hauls his aching carcass off the ground, on fire with pain, and empties the contents of his stomach onto the gravel path. His head is full of fog and bad feelings and he hears distant shrieking from behind him once the dry heaving ceases. The light is from a fire, he registers. He’s outside. The asylum is _burning_. Oh god, it’s burning, that means he’s _free_ —

Eddie’s sick all over again. He’s sluggish and disconnected, feverishly hot, but his skin feels clammy and cold when he wipes his face. The fever is just a thing inside him, in his brain, shrouding vast gaps of memory, like a cloud over the sun. He can’t remember how he got here.

Crouched further down the path, well out of reach, is a small man covered in grime. He looks fragile, wounded, but his expression is hard, defiant, determined.

Eddie touches his own face. His hands come away wet with blood and something else probably much worse.

“Are you going to kill me?” the man asks him.

“Where are we?” Eddie asks. The last clear thing he can remember is being pulled from his cell and stripped down for testing.

“Are you going to kill me?” The man from the booth. Eddie tries to think of a name and can only conjure a blurry memory of an access badge, of big eyes and a terrified face behind bulletproof glass.

The man lifts a knife, hand shaking, and Eddie can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t think.

*

That’s not how it happens.

It’s _not_. Eddie never gets out. Waylon Park can’t help him.

That’s just what Eddie dreams about while he’s being strapped into the Morphogenic Engine.

It turns him inside out. It’s not the asylum burning, it’s Eddie.

His father’s silhouette in the doorway becomes a shadow that blocks out every last bit of light.

*

The Engine wakes something from the blackest pits of his mind.

Eddie opens to the insidious, illicit thrills it promises — absolution, freedom, the end to all shame and his terrible unnatural hungers.

The solution to his father’s disappointment seems so simple now: He couldn’t cut away all his unsightly, deviant desires in that living nightmare, but he can excise the source of it.

The knife is in his hand.

Dirty of those small-minded sluts to ever try to lead him astray in the first place, but self-reflection is such difficult work. He lends a helping hand, bloody though it may be.

Perfecting a craft is always awfully hard work.

But he finds his darling, small and scared in this den of wolves, his prize for finally seeing the truth of things.

She comes to him, fleeing like a lamb from the beasts that border his territory. It’s no great matter that she‘s afraid of his work; his bloody laboring isn’t meant for delicate constitutions.

He corners her. Catches her. Gives her time to rest. His sleeping beauty.

She looks just as lovely now as in his dream, his sweetheart, now his greatest treasure even though she’s covered in grime and blood. He wipes her face with a clean, damp cloth, cradling her sleeping body to his chest, and presses kisses to her small nose, her wide cheeks, her slack mouth.

With great care he undresses her, washes her. Her skin is darker than his and when he lays his palm over her flat stomach, his scarred hand looks pale and unsightly compared to her smooth, warm body.

When she wakes up, she begs so fearfully for him to let her go. It shatters his heart.

Her cock is unsightly. He’ll have to rid her of that unfortunate little vulgarity — but he blames the _doctors_ , not her. They’re always hurting people, giving them things they don’t want, taking away anything good.

They made her into an abomination. It isn’t her fault. She doesn’t seem to know that having a cock hurts people, but she struggles in his arms whenever he gets near it. He’ll fix her, bring her home to his mother and father.

When she starts begging, he thinks maybe she _does_ know and she doesn’t want to hurt him with it.

That’s a risk he’ll have to take. Happy wife, happy life. All too unfortunate that wives simply don’t know what’s best for them. She’ll feel much better once they get this horrid little problem out of the way.

The process will be easy enough and he doesn’t understand why she’s screaming while he tries to reassure her how quick it’ll be, the poor dove. What’s she been through without him there to protect her? What have those evil men _done_ to her? It makes him _so angry_ —

*

Waylon Park can’t help him – there was never any hope of that at all, just another delusion of it – so Eddie Gluskin never escapes from Mount Massive Asylum, never struggles to his feet on the gravel outside the gates.

The Morphogenic Engine turns him inside out, plunges him into a darkness full of claws and teeth and death. It pushes all the everyday darkness, all the guilt and pain clouding his mind, down into a box and brings out something far worse.

The Groom walks the pitch black halls howling for a love that’s impossible, mind burnt to cinders by evil men in the name of profit.

The Groom dies impaled on rebar, consumed by violent delusions and a black, swarming rage that no man could hope to grapple with.

Eddie Gluskin wakes up from his nightmare only to find another waiting; he’s holding Waylon Park’s small hand, both of them covered in blood and rank visceral waste.

The pain brings clarity: he knows in the few seconds before a different kind of darkness consumes him that the man he thought was his wife is the same man who was looking down at him from the control booth.

Waylon had been wide-eyed and gasping in terror when the Groom was born and now trembles in fear at the moment of his death.

*

He’s in a hospital. He’s blind with pain. He goes under half a dozen times, maybe more. Maybe it’s the other way around. He’s all mixed up, time stretching out like the thread he helped his mama measure out when he was four, five, six.

He can’t tell how long it is between waking and sleeping. He can’t even tell if the hospital is real, or if he’s still dreaming, trapped somewhere between reality and the protracted nightmare where his father finally made him into a _real_ man.

When someone asks him a question, he can’t understand it through the haze, he can’t answer.

His head is full of black buzzing, his limbs too heavy to lift. His teeth taste like blood.

In a moment of lucidity, Eddie can hear footsteps at the door to his room. A familiar voice asks, soft and stunned, “He’s alive?” and Eddie’s heart leaps, leaps, his _darling_ – but, _no_ , that’s the nightmare too, whispering more lies.

Not his darling. The man in the control booth.

“You can’t be in here, Mr. Park. You have to return to your room,” a voice says. The firm, businesslike tone marks her as a doctor. Eddie’s eyelids are too heavy to look, too heavy to see what’s real or not.

_Wait_ , Eddie wants to say, but he can’t move his mouth even to beg.

*

He knows he’s had a stroke, but he doesn’t know what that means. They tell him that every time he wakes up and fumbles with his water, when he can’t think of the words for something simple. A mild one, the nurse tells him, grimacing instead of smiling when she adjusts his pillows.

They ask him to remember words, colors, numbers. He forgets half of them. They ask him to draw a clock and he recreates the grandfather clock in his mother’s living room with its gold hands, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, but he doesn’t know what time it is and rips the paper.

He’s likely to make a full recovery, one nurse after another says, if he follows instructions. Full recovery – whatever the fuck that means for someone like Eddie with his mind full of holes.

He wakes up. An orderly asks, “Mr. Gluskin, do you know where you are?”

“When are they releasing me?” Eddie asks dumbly, fumbling to take the hand offered to him. He doesn’t know if he’s speaking to the same person that asked him the question. He can only hazily remember faces, keep track of time, keep track of himself.

It took two months of being hooked to a machine before they patiently showed him how to manage his IV pole without damaging the cannula in his arm, and how to lever himself up without ripping his stitches.

He’s working on doing that now, a second attempt in as many days. 

His mind feels like someone took it out, shook it around, and hooked it up backwards. His limbs are slow to respond and he knows he’s never felt like the brightest bulb in the box but something’s still wrong with him.

“Not for a while, Mr. Gluskin,” the orderly says. It’s probably the hundredth time Eddie’s asked the question. He can’t remember the answers for more than five minutes after the questions, information sitting on top of his brain like a layer of oil over a pond, never sinking in.

They sat him up a few days ago, and he saw the mess beneath the bandages while the nurse was changing them, watching even when she told him he didn’t have to. His torso is still a mess of ugly red wounds, itching and aching under layers of gauze and tape. He knows his survival is nothing short of miraculous, but the healing wound punched clean through his torso drowns out any relief he feels about being alive.

A handful of candy stripers, all young women, smile and wave at Eddie optimistically from behind a barred window. They don’t seem to care that he put his hands on a few people before Mount Massive, or that he mutilated an unknown number of patients after the Morphogenic Engine cracked his already tenuously-working brain open like a ripe watermelon.

Eddie stands there looking at them, pumped full of sedatives, dumbfounded and confused by their boldness. He remembers distantly that some people like to watch bad things and don’t mind bad men – like his mama.

His mama must’ve liked bad men a whole lot.

Or maybe –

Maybe his father was right – Eddie is the bad man and this has all been what he deserves for being born corrupt and filthy. Unclean.

He feels unclean now, like they’re waiting for him to fall. They don’t really like him, they’re just pretending so they can mock how weak and sick he is later when he isn’t around to defend himself.

Stupid bitches. Stupid filthy _cunts_ —

When he looks again, one of the women is wearing a dead girl’s face. She’s grinning, lips pulled back into a death rictus, too wide, like something is wrong with her mouth.

Eddie hits himself in the head, snarling and straining against the old poison he can’t ever seem to get away from. He doesn’t know how to run from an evil living inside him, to fight something he can’t see. It’s just shadows, but the fear suffocates him even when he knows it isn’t real.

His monitor chirps a warning alarm. The numbers he knows are his heart rate and blood pressure climb high, higher. He bellows in pain and the alarm grows more insistent.

“Mr. Gluskin,” the orderly says, “Eddie, I need you to calm down before you hurt yourself.”

Hurt himself? He isn’t going to hurt himself. He’s going to hurt someone else. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone else.

Eddie bends the IV pole, crumples it in his hand like it’s an empty cardboard tube.

He never did know his own strength.

Eddie opens his hand. It’s covered in blood. For a moment he’s nineteen again with that stupid bitch asking him why he can’t get it up for her. His daddy would’ve beat him raw for looking at an unclean woman like her anyways, would’ve taken him into the back and —

He feels a scream rising in his throat, he wants to vomit —

But it’s just him, it’s his own blood where he’s ripped his stitches. Eddie makes a wounded noise. The orderly sticks him with something and shouts for help. There are footsteps in the hall, the familiar sound of the nursing staff leaping to action.

Before he succumbs to the sedative he sees that the women have vanished.

*

He doesn’t understand more than one in ten things the doctors tell him about his immune system, his hormone levels, his healing. They use big words and he’s still on so many pills that when he’s discharged he’s not even sure he’s still alive.

His memory is better. He knows: cat, ball, zebra, honesty, can recite them an hour later. He can feed himself and manipulate a pen to write, but they take it away after he’s signed his name. Maybe they’re afraid he’ll open a vein with it — his or someone else’s.

They put him back in prison and try to tell him it isn’t one. _Federal detention center_ , whatever the fuck that means.

It’s a federally funded mental health care facility, but Eddie knows prisons when he sees them, and the men herding them from cage to cage are just prison guards in nicer uniforms. He stands in line, takes his pills, listens to grown men sob like children in the dark.

He doesn’t have a cellmate, so he climbs into the top bunk so he doesn’t have to think about the half-dead men hiding in the corners looking at him. They do it anyway, but he feels safer out of their direct line of sight, and when something in the pills starts to work the hallucinations retreat to the edges of his vision.

One night after lights out, they aren’t there at all any more.

A couple of days later, the guards take him to a room set up for a meeting and chain him down like a dog. Padded manacles are still manacles. He tests the chains when the guards leave, watching the metal strain, the welded joints groan under the stress.

This place ain’t built big enough to hold him once he’s back up to fighting weight. Murkoff saw to that, put their venom in his bones, built him to pull their war plow, put poison in his mind so he didn’t know anymore what was him and what was their puppetry.

A door down the hallway creaks open, and he settles, lowering his hands flat to the table.

He knows the routine. He doesn’t make any sudden movements when a woman enters flanked by two mean looking prison guards. It’s not so much for her sake; he doesn’t want to get tased by one of these trigger-happy assholes looking to get his boot on someone’s neck for the extra overtime involved in hauling a man as big as Eddie down to solitary.

They feel safe enough to put the rod to Eddie when he’s chained up, and it’s as inevitable as sharks to the smell of blood. It only takes the meanest one and then they all try to prove their manhood.

“Hello, Mr. Gluskin,” the woman says. Eddie knows right away that she’s a shrink, from her kitten heels and pantsuit to the pink tortoiseshell rims of her glasses. She looks out of place in somewhere this grungy; she’s clearly not staff. Maybe someone from the outside that they sent in to look at him.

Eddie shifts on the metal bench. It creaks under his weight. He’s not as big as he was before Mount Massive, but he’s steadily regaining his mass, and his physical therapy encourages his predisposition towards physical activity.

Eddie Gluskin is a growing boy again, and he’s got nothing left on his hands but the free time to grow.

“Mr. Gluskin was my father. Please, call me Eddie.” He darts glances at the guards, who look bored. Bored is bad. Bored always means they could hit him later for fun, even if he behaves.

“Excuse me for a moment, Eddie — are the restraints necessary?” the shrink asks, turning to a guard. “His patient file indicates he’s responding extremely well to his medication and he hasn’t had any violent episodes since his first month under care. Please release him.”

“You not see the papers? He’s a serial killer,” the guard says, hand on his baton. He looks like he’s got an ugly temper, his balding pate badly buzzed and greasy like being an especially poorly groomed prick is a point of pride.

She looks unimpressed. “I asked you to release him. I reviewed the facility policy and signed the waiver.”

“Your funeral, ma’am,” the guard mutters, but he lets Eddie loose anyways. He gets real close and Eddie thinks about rattling his chains to spook the asshole, but that’ll just pay back in painful dividends later.

The guards both decide to wait outside and lock the cell door behind them. Good move on their part. Cowards.

Eddie lets the manacles clatter to the table, casual, like he’s fumbling them. She doesn’t flinch. The guards do. That makes Eddie look a little more closely at her when she sits down across from him. Her suiting is high quality, the shape well-made, hemmed by hand, her jacket cropped to a flattering fit that falls above her hips. It’s a modern style that Eddie isn’t familiar with and he cranes his neck a little to get a better look at it.

“My name is Dr. Alice Ullah,” she says, removing the thick folder from beneath her arm and placing it on the table between them. Her nails are short and well-manicured, like she has real money. Like a woman who appreciates fine things. Paid someone else to do them for her.

Her long, dark hair is partially covered by some sort of scarf. He thinks he might know what that means, but he also knows none of the words his father would’ve used to describe Dr. Ullah should ever be said by anyone even halfway decent.

Eddie looks at the guards, who seem to have lost interest in what happens to Dr. Ullah. They’re talking casually, attention carefully and deliberately diverted. Their lack of concern is intentional. He grinds his teeth; no decent men here. Not Eddie, not the guards. It’s up to him to be hospitable anyways.

He stands and she looks up, up, up. He takes her hand between both of his, dwarfing them, and she allows it without flinching. “Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Ullah. Please, make yourself at home. I apologize for the current state of things.”

She smiles at him. “Do you know why I’m here, Eddie?”

He grunts and releases her hand, gesturing for her to sit first. There are niceties to be observed. She takes his invitation, and he settles across from her, hands folded in his lap. “I’m familiar with shrinks and their role in institutionalized violence.”

Her mouth quirks up on one side. He’s surprised her, or amused her, and he doesn’t understand why. “I’m a private psychiatrist specializing in helping survivors of violent trauma and abuse reintegrate into their lives. I don’t work for the state.”

Abuse is such a toothless word for what happened to Eddie, he thinks.

“Are you here to try to tell me why I need to be institutionalized forever?” Eddie asks. He looks down at his hands. He could hurt her easily, but he doesn’t want to. Thinking about it makes him feel momentarily sick. “Or do they want me to go back to gen pop?”

“I don’t work for _any_ prisons or state facilities. My practice is regularly for people outside institutions, but I do pro bono work for a small facility called St. Stephen's,” Dr. Ullah says. “I help people who’ve survived extraordinary situations and, unfortunately, many individuals in long term care happen to meet that criteria.”

Eddie leans forward. He knows his smile is unfriendly. “You work with many murderers?”

She pulls a tape recorder from her jacket pocket and places it on the table between them, next to Eddie’s file. “You won’t be the first person I’ve treated who’s killed someone, either intentionally or inadvertently.”

Eddie scowls, hunching his shoulders. “Why do you want to talk to me so badly if you have so many lab rats already?”

“I was hired by your legal team,” Dr. Ullah says. She sees his confusion and twists to check the guards with a frown. He thinks he sees that she’s angry, for just a second, before she reins in her frown. “Have you not seen your legal representation yet?”

“I figured they’d eventually give me a business card,” Eddie says. He’s an old hand at this circus. They pass him off on some young DA that thinks he wants to cut his teeth defending a murderer with a tragic past but ends up scared shitless the second he sees Eddie.

“You have a whole team of lawyers. Jackson and Price,” she says. “Waylon Park was extremely insistent that every survivor of the Mount Massive Asylum incident was covered by private legal representation and independent mental health evaluations. He’s put most of his life savings towards the effort, I understand, and secured additional funding through charity drives.”

“Waylon Park?” Eddie asks. That name is so familiar. He thinks about it and remembers a terrified face behind glass but not what happens after. He smells blood. He doesn’t like the gaps in his memory, but he thinks he’ll like what’s in those gaps even less. “What does he want with me?”

“He was concerned Murkoff was going to pay off local law enforcement to look the other way at best — or somehow surrender the survivors back into Murkoff’s care, at worst,” Dr. Ullah says. “Given the severity of the abuses and ethical violations at Mount Massive and the considerable legal trouble it’s bringing the company as we speak, I sincerely don’t blame him.”

That’s – smart. Money opens a lot of doors. Sometimes to bad things. Eddie’s seen it himself, suffered it himself.

Eddie knows he got a light sentence for the bad things he did. He’s a real criminal with a real crime under his belt, he did one of the worst things someone could do. Eddie remembers the before and after, but not the during. Waking up to bodies, to blood, his head on the asphalt while a cop put a boot on his spine.

Six years of prison up front for that awful thing he did, because a jury of fine, upstanding Christian citizens saw a gentle, handsome kid with a bright future and a tragic past. Manslaughter. They talked a lot about things like _mens rea_ and _diminished capacity_.

Headlines parroted his abuse. His own legal team saw to that. That’s left a worse taste in his mouth than anything the prosecutor ever hurled at him.

The photos his father and uncle took were discussed. He doesn't know if they were ever entered as evidence or if anyone looked at them during the trial, if the police allowed it. He doesn’t think so.

Eddie doesn’t need the pictures to remember what happened. He was there when they were taken.

After that, he got pretty good medication that made him tired and thirsty. He got to talk to someone who didn’t piss him off all the time – and maybe he was gonna get even better on the outside, but he got his release date stolen from him when a guard that didn’t like him decided to plant a knife under Eddie’s pillow.

No one believes a killer that they could ever be sorry about what they did, much less that they could ever be telling the truth about anything else.

The rest – well, he’s here now, and he gave up on anyone listening to him about being sorry a long time ago.

“Where are you right now, Eddie?” Dr. Ullah asks. He focuses on her, counts the buttons on her jacket. Her top is the color of sunshine, and he knows she’d look good in some of the colors his mama made dresses in but never wore. He’s never met a lady that wears nice suits before. Hasn’t met too many ladies of any kind at all.

“What?” he says stupidly, blinking at her. He looks for the guards. They haven’t moved.

Dr. Ullah smiles at him. He wonders if she knows what he did, if she saw the pictures. _Mutilation._ The papers called him a murderer. Some of them called him a serial killer, just for what he did after those women were dead. Did exactly what his own father threatened to do to Eddie if Eddie ever told anyone what was happening. Made angels from them.

He doesn’t remember it all. The doctors at Mount Massive Asylum had been keenly interested in those moments, so Eddie had filled in the gaps a little, embellished, parroted newspaper articles he saw about himself.

They made him look at the pictures, but when he looks at them he can’t tell them the truth because he doesn’t really know which parts are true.

“What are you here for?” Eddie asks. Down the hallway, there are footsteps, tinny and washed out, like they’re coming down on a bad television line. He has a bad feeling like something terrible will happen if those footsteps get too much closer.

“Eddie?” Dr. Ullah asks carefully. “Can you describe to me what’s happening to you?”

He shakes his head. He remembers those footsteps. Doctors with needles who strapped him into that machine, fed tubes into him.

Eddie groans. “What the _fuck_ does he want with me? Haven’t there been enough tests?”

Waylon Park. The man from the control booth.

_Waylon Park_. Why the hell is Waylon Park helping pay for known killer Eddie Gluskin’s legal defense?

Especially after – after Eddie –

Eddie presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.

It’s a gaping maw of despair, those days of the riot, after the Morphogenic Engine took hold of him. He knows the memories are there, interred in a shallow grave alongside the black hole of his childhood, of his father’s big hands where no father’s hands should ever be, his uncle laughing, of his own hands on those women.

It’s buried there, he just can’t –

Dr. Ullah is watching him when he lowers his hands. She doesn’t say anything about his behavior, but she opens the folder and slides it across the table to Eddie. “I’m here to assess your fitness for inpatient treatment at a private facility. Your defense is requesting private care, and the judge happens to agree that would be wise, conditional on an evaluation.”

He looks at the paperwork. The print is tiny, but it looks official. There’s a picture of him paperclipped to the inside of the file. 

In it, his face is still scarred and his eyes still bloodshot, his nose an ugly mess of bruises, yellow and purple with healing. They shaved him in the hospital to monitor something in his brain. He looks like a brute, with his normal-sized mouth tacked onto a meaty, bald head a size too big for his features.

“What’s the catch?” he asks, pushing the file away. He knows what’s in there and he doesn’t like looking at it. Most of it is probably lies if the Murkoff Corporation goons got near it.

“You’ll be offered a comfortable room, therapy, and care while your testimonial is taken and your legal team assesses the damages owed to you by the Murkoff Corporation,” Dr. Ullah says. “So, no catch at all. May I record our conversation?”

Eddie looks at her and then looks at the recorder on the table between them. He nearly died, spent the better part of three months in a hospital bed alternating between vomiting up his guts, learning how to walk again, and being so drugged he couldn’t remember he was a person. The three after that weren’t much better.

It can’t hurt. He’s already been through the worst hell imaginable.

“Yeah, sure. What do you want to know?” he asks and she hits the _Record_ button.

*

St. Stephen’s doesn’t feel like any institution that Eddie’s ever been in and he’s been around the block more than a few times. There are still bars on the windows, but they’re not the same kind in the low grade industrial prison cells Eddie’s used to.

The halls are well-lit, modern. He gets a proper tour of the facility: clinic, dining hall, rec room, dormitories, library. There’s a garden with flowers and a koi pond for patients who aren’t at risk of drowning themselves. They give him a little map because he still has a hard time remembering the layout.

He doesn’t want to do anything but sleep, but they get him out of his narrow bed at eight in the morning and make him cycle through different parts of the hospital – and it is a hospital, it smells like one.

One of the guys, Bobby, in the minimum security ward has attained near mythological status by having a private room and a big golden retriever named Francine.

A therapy dog. Eddie didn’t know dogs could help do therapy.

Eddie gets to pet Francine for the first time a week into his stay at St. Stephen's.

She wags her tail at him while they’re standing in the dinner line for meal time and he gives her a scratch behind the ears over the divider while Bobby shyly smiles at Eddie. Eddie hasn’t gotten to pet a dog in almost three decades.

The orderly that comes by to see what’s holding up the line doesn’t yell at them, just offers Francine a treat and patiently ushers the gaggle of people back into motion. 

Eddie eats all of his chicken that night, and tries cornbread for the first time. The mashed potatoes are real, not powder out of a box, with little bits of the peel still on them. It might be the best food he’s ever had, and they serve something new almost every night.

This is the kind of place they take rich people’s kids.

He sits alone at a table in the rec room for a few hours every night with the other inmates — _patients_ , he corrects himself, it’s not a prison — watching him warily. None of them seem afraid, just curious, just shy. The televisions almost always play Animal Planet and even though Eddie has trouble focusing on it for too long, he still learns some stuff about tropical fish or the rainforest or mountain goats that he didn’t know before.

They let him have little draft pencils and scraps of printer paper cut into fourths, so when he goes back to his room every night he tries to draw something he’s seen on the television. The orderlies comment on each one when they come to check on him, ask him what he’s making every night, and it gets a little easier to speak to people every day he’s there.

The ward is always quiet at night. No one screams, no one begs for help. It puts him on edge, reminds him of the long nights where any sound was rewarded by a baton to the face or a boot to the groin even though he knows this isn’t one of those places.

The week after Eddie settles in he has his first appointment with Dr. Ullah. The calendar informs him she’ll make time for him on three weekdays and every third Saturday; routine is important. A pair of large orderlies he doesn’t know escort him to meet her in one of the secured office wings.

She shares a cramped volunteer office with another psychiatrist who uses one of the regular treatment rooms to see patients, so they’re left alone for their sessions. For the first appointment, Eddie meets her there and sits in an overstuffed armchair directly across from her, like two people settling in for a fireside chat. The room is bursting with books and there are no bars on the row of narrow windows.

It’s been seven months since the first day of his hospitalization after Mount Massive.

“Do you like to read?” she asks when she catches him looking.

“I’m no good at it,” Eddie says. “My mama made me memorize bible verses.”

Dr. Ullah smiles. She’s not writing anything down, so Eddie figures he isn’t telling her anything new yet. All that stuff is already in one of his files and they both know it. “What about reading for pleasure?”

“Used to read a little Hardy Boys,” he says with some difficulty, struggling to remember that far back. He never really read after they locked him up, not unless he could find a magazine with pictures, and most of those ended up with dicks drawn on them by bored inmates. “Popular Mechanics. Looked at the Vogue Patterns packets my mama collected when I helped her do her work. I like — looking at pictures a lot better.”

“A fan of the arts?” Dr. Ullah asks.

“Not,” Eddie struggles for the right words, because they still come a little slower to him than they used to, “art. Not paintings. Diagrams. Patterns. How to make things.”

Dr. Ullah still doesn’t write anything down. “I’ve been told that you prefer to make your own clothes if able.”

“Had to. Didn’t have any brothers and I got too big for hand-me-downs from my cousins after I turned fifteen,” Eddie says.

“Is that something you’d like to talk about at all?” Dr. Ullah queries. “Your family?”

“No,” Eddie says, turning his face away. As far as he’s concerned he doesn’t have one. He thinks his aunt and cousins are still alive somewhere, but they never visited after what he did was all over the local papers, after Eddie’s mama died and his aunt took her boys somewhere else.

“Okay,” she says. “Well, why don’t you tell me a little bit more about some of the things you used to make. I’ve done a little bit of knitting, but I’m not very familiar with handcrafted garments.”

“Why do you want to know?” he asks cautiously. No one’s ever asked him about that unless it’s to ask him if he makes dresses for himself, too, if he likes putting them on because he’s _deviant_.

Dr. Ullah doesn’t make fun of him, though. “Because I want to get to know you. There are a lot of notes in your file about your symptoms, but very few notes about the things you like or what you think.”

He regards her with suspicion. Them digging around in his private life has always been bad enough. All that happens when he’s been honest has been his doctors using the things he hates as another way to hurt Eddie.

His shame and frustration bubble up. “Why do you even care about that shit? Does making a couple dresses to help my mama make me some kind of deviant?”

“I’m here to help you, not study you,” Dr. Ullah says. “Your happiness is worth investing in. If there’s something that you’d like to do, or learn, or read while you’re here, I can help facilitate that if you think it might help.”

“What makes you think I’m even _worth_ helping?” Eddie asks, souring further. He doesn’t want someone’s pity. They always try to get him with the carrot and stick, but it’s always been just the stick in the end.

He knows there’s better things for people to spend their time on. Better people.

“Because you’re a person,” Dr. Ullah says. “Because a great disservice has been done to you by your caretakers and I think you deserve to have someone listen to you for once.”

“People keep saying that. _You_ keep saying that. Maybe I’m not a good person, though. Maybe I liked killing those girls,” Eddie says. He’s twice Dr. Ullah’s size and she has the door closed. It makes him feel sick, but he could do something real bad, even without a knife. Could be out the door with the access badge on her hip before anyone found her. “Do you know what it feels like to put your hand inside someone else’s body?”

“Would you prefer it if I were afraid of you?” Dr. Ullah asks him flatly, her expression hardening dangerously. “You’re being manipulative and unkind. Is it so you feel like you’re in control? So you don’t have to confront your trauma? Is someone who hurts other people who you really want to be?”

Eddie bares his teeth, ugly with hot and awful embarrassment he can’t contain. “What’s it to a bitch like you?”

“ _Eddie_ ,” Dr. Ullah says and Eddie shrinks back in surprise at her tone. “I’m your psychiatrist, not your enemy, and certainly not your punching bag. Let’s get that out of the way right now.”

“I’ve talked to shrinks before,” Eddie says. She’s humiliating him. She’ll keep humiliating him until they give him to someone else, and they always do. It’s only a matter of time before he ends up somewhere like Mount Massive again, when he has too much and they get tired of pretending they give a shit about him. “You don’t think I know I’m a lost cause? Might as well give up now, save yourself some time.”

“The only thing that makes you a lost cause is if you stop trying to help yourself,” Dr. Ullah says, her lips pursed into a moue of disapproval. It should feel good that he’s gotten under her skin, but she’s under his too, and unlike him she can walk away. “The only person you’re failing here is yourself.”

“Then there’s no loss, is there?” he asks sullenly.

“Look around, Eddie,” Dr. Ullah says. “This isn’t a holding cell or a lab. You’re not a rat in my maze. I’m only here to help you sort through your feelings, for your benefit, not mine.”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Eddie says.

“I don’t want anything at all from you,” Dr. Ullah says. “My only agenda items are to provide you support and safety. You get to decide what that looks like.”

“I don’t need help,” Eddie lies.

It _is_ a lie. 

He doesn’t know how to do any better on his own, that much is clear. But he’s never had anyone that’s wanted to help him. Maybe he’d never have been on the inside in the first place if someone had paid attention, if the people who were supposed to be blood, who were supposed to always be there for him, love him, if they hadn’t been the ones to hurt him the most.

If Eddie closes his eyes now he knows he’ll see his father standing in the shadow of the doorway. Out of the corner of his eye, something moves. He doesn’t look; only dead men are there, and he doesn’t ever like to look. He knows there are worse things waiting if he does.

“Eddie,” Dr. Ullah says, quiet but firm. “We don’t have to talk about your family right now, or why you were in prison, or what happened at Mount Massive. We can talk about how you feel now, or just about things you enjoy.”

“That isn’t much to talk about,” Eddie says, swallowing. He appreciates the concession, but the reality is that his happiness has always been conditional and infrequent. And that’s the real shame of it; he’s angry because he can’t even answer her question. “There isn’t – I don’t _know_.”

“That’s fine,” Dr. Ullah says. “Is there perhaps something you’re interested in? I can bring you some materials.”

Eddie draws a shaky breath, steadying himself. Tears prick sharply, threatening to spill. Wetly, he asks, “Do you know anything about mountain goats?”

Dr. Ullah smiles at him. She pretends not to see him on the verge of tears. Maybe she’s used to patients crying. An awful lot of people cry in places like this.

She says, “I don’t. Can you tell me something about them?”

Their hooves mold to a mountain’s rocky surface. They adapt to anything thrown their way, no matter how harsh and dangerous the conditions are. Eddie wants to be more like that – adaptable.

“Not very much,” he says and reaches for the tiny teacup she’s set out for him. It’s pink, covered in little blue flowers, and he can hold it in the palm of one hand. “I’d like to go see one in person one day.”

*

[Audio Transcript - July 09, 2014, 3:18 PM MST - EDWARD GLUSKIN_interview_part_1.mp3]

**Alan Book:** Today’s Wednesday, July 9th, 2014. Time is approximately 3:18 PM. My name is Alan Book of Jackson and Price. Case number is 7345-392. This recording is not to be included in formal deposition, but used as a pre-hearing assessment of the fitness of the client to personally appear before the court. Could you please state your names for the record?

**Edward Gluskin:** I’m Eddie.

**Dr. Alice Ullah:** My name is Dr. Alice Ullah, acting as custodian for Edward Gluskin.

**Alan Book:** Sorry, Eddie. Could I have you repeat your full name for the recording?

**Edward Gluskin:** Eddie — Edward Gluskin.

**Alan Book:** Your middle name for the record?

**Edward Gluskin:** I don’t _have_ one.

**Alan Book:** Oh – I’m sorry, I –

**Dr. Alice Ullah:** We should move on. It’s not important to what we’re doing, correct? – Good, then please continue, Mr. Book.

**Alan Book:** The criminal proceedings against the Murkoff Corporation are pretty well underway. I wouldn’t call Mr. Park’s and the presumed deceased Mr. Upshur’s video footage or the rest of the documentation recovered from the facility a smoking gun, but the case shows incredible promise.

**Edward Gluskin:** So what do you need me for if you’ve got all this evidence?

**Alan Book:** Waylon Park has also decided to pursue additional civil damages. Do you know what that means?

**Edward Gluskin:** I’m not fucking stupid.

**Dr. Alice Ullah:** Eddie, please.

**Alan Book:** I apologize. I just mean to be clear for the record. Mr. Park is suing for damages on behalf of the surviving victims of the Mount Massive Asylum riot.

**Edward Gluskin:** So he can get some money and feel good about himself?

**Alan Book:** No, let me show you — 

**Dr. Alice Ullah:** You can give the documents to me, if you have copies for him, but it’s best if you explain yourself verbally, Mr. Book.

**Edward Gluskin:** Just tell me what you mean so I can get back to what I was doing.

**Alan Book:** Not to make it too complex, Mr. Park’s lawsuit represents everyone. He’s working with our legal staff and survivor’s conservators to create independently managed irrevocable trusts. The money will be used to help provide long term care for everyone, medical and otherwise, but to get the ball rolling we need everyone on board to make our best case.

**Edward Gluskin:** Sounds pretty complex to me. Can’t I just sign some papers and someone else takes care of it?

**Dr. Alice Ullah:** Do you remember how I told you there were other patients? Most of them are still nonverbal, Eddie, and the legal team thinks it would be very helpful to have someone who was a patient there talk about what was happening before Waylon Park took his contract.

**Edward Gluskin:** They aren’t going to poke and prod at me?

**Alan Brook:** Dr. Ullah can provide any medical references or assessments we might require.

**Edward Gluskin:** Okay – okay, whatever, all right. What do you want to know?

**Alan Book:** Could you – could you tell me a little bit about your abuse as a child? I know it’s a sensitive subject for you, but I think it could be important in building a case for cruel and unusual punishment.

**Edward Gluskin:** What the hell does that have to do with those assholes at Mount Massive?

**Dr. Alice Ullah:** Mr. Book, I thought we agreed to not bring that up – 

**Alan Book:** It would —

**Eddie Gluskin:** They stuck tubes in me and tortured me, that’s what they did. If that isn’t cruel and unusual enough for you, I don’t know what the fuck to tell you.

**Dr. Alice Ullah:** Eddie, you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to, but please sit down.

**Alan Book:** I’m sorry – Mr. Gluskin –

**Edward Gluskin:** No, fuck you — fuck this –

**Alan Book:** The court will ask. The defense will bring up your past to try to make you look incompetent.

**Edward Gluskin:** Incompetent? You don’t know what you’re fucking _talking_ about —

**Dr. Alice Ullah:** Eddie, _Eddie,_ hold _on_ , you aren’t obligated to answer, but this is for the court record. We can start again if you’d like to skip this question. Please — would you sit down?

**Edward Gluskin:** Get that fucking thing out of my face, you sick asshole –

**Dr. Alice Ullah:** Perhaps it would be wise to turn that off and try again later –

**Edward Gluskin:** You motherfucker, you sick pieces of shit –

[END RECORDING]

*

DISTRICT COURT

COUNTY OF LAKE

STATE OF COLORADO

WAYLON PARK, on behalf of himself and other Colorado citizens similarly situated, 

Plaintiff,

v.

MURKOFF CORPORATION AND ASSOCIATES and MOUNT MASSIVE ASYLUM,

Defendants.

REPORTER’S PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

EDWARD GLUSKIN,

having been duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:

By MR. ALAN BOOK: 

Q: Could you state your name for the record?

A: Edward Gluskin. That’s G-l-u-s-k-i-n, ma’am.

Q: Thank you, Mr. Gluskin. The record states you were admitted as a patient to Mount Massive Asylum on February 01, 2013. Is this correct?

A: Yes.

Q: Can you briefly describe your reason for admission as a patient?

A: Yes. I was hearing voices.

Q: As a symptom of your schizophrenia diagnosis, correct?

A: Yes.

Q: The record also states that you were prescribed medication for your schizophrenia.

A: I had some pills for it, yeah.

Q: Could you just briefly confirm for me if the pills were no longer helping mitigate your symptoms, Mr. Gluskin?

A: The pills were helping for a while but the doctor changed my prescription.

Q: Do you recall the name of the doctor who provided you the prescription?

A: No. I can’t remember. I talked to more than one doctor and sometimes I wouldn’t see the doctor at all and pick up different pills. Wouldn’t tell me why.

Q: Were you provided any literature about the medication change? 

A: Yeah, sure. But I don’t read too well.

Q: When were you transferred to Mount Massive Asylum?

A: Couple weeks after the prescription change.

Q: And to the best of your knowledge, the date of that change was January 01, 2013?

A: If that’s what my transfer paperwork says, that’s when it was.

Q: Were you aware that the prison had recently been acquired by the Murkoff Corporation?

A: I wasn’t aware of much. You ever been in prison?

Q: No, I —

A: Then you know they don’t tell us shit.

THE COURT: Mr. Gluskin, I understand you’ve endured a great deal, but I have to ask you to mind your language. Mr. Book, if you could keep your witness on topic.

By MR. ALAN BOOK:

Q: Yes, your Honor. Mr. Gluskin, you weren’t made aware of the reason for your change in prescription medication or your transfer to Mount Massive Asylum?

A: No.

Q: Did anyone give any indication at all? Maybe a guard or another prisoner.

A: Another inmate told me they heard that maybe I was just too crazy to stay in general population. Don’t remember his name. 

Q: By that you mean your condition had deteriorated?

A: Yeah, I was hearing things. Seeing things sometimes at night. Sometimes not at night.

Q: Your condition had previously been documented as stable?

A: Yeah, I guess. I talked to a shrink every other week and took my pills and didn’t see dead bodies sleeping in my bunk any more. So yeah. If my file says stable, we can call that stable.

Q: Can I ask you a little about your physical encounter with Officer Jacob Wilson?

A: Broke his fuckin nose, didn’t I? Sorry, your Honor, my manners —

THE COURT: Order, please. I said order. Mr. Gluskin, this is your second warning.

By MR. ALAN BOOK:

Q: My apologies, your Honor. Mr. Gluskin, let’s continue. Can you tell me what led to the encounter?

A: He told me he bet I was a good little cocksucker like daddy taught me.

Q: Is that when you assaulted him?

A: No.

Q: Could you tell us a little more about what led to your assault?

A: First of all, it wasn’t assault, it was self-defense. I don’t care what the report says. I was cuffed. He kept running his mouth. I can’t remember all of it, but he wanted to know if I had a little dick. But he touched me.

Q: Could you clarify if you mean that he touched you in the normal course of prisoner transport?

A: No, he grabbed my balls. I hit him in the face.

Q: Is it correct that Officer Jacob Wilson was dismissed for sexual misconduct?

A: They fired him I guess. Some of the inmates who had friends in other prisons said he’d been hired back a few weeks later out near Loveland.

Q: Were you aware that Officer Jacob Wilson was also a Murkoff Corporation employee who worked for their private security force?

A: No. 

Q: What happened after the incident with Jacob Wilson?

A: They moved me out to Leadville Correctional.

Q: Which, as we established previously, was acquired by the Murkoff Corporation shortly afterwards. Your Honor, I have no further questions at the present.

THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Book. Mr. Gluskin, the bailiff will escort you to your seat, if you’d be so kind as to not give him any trouble about it. I’d like to take a look at 378 and 379 again after we break for lunch. Those should be the patient records from before and after Mr. Gluskin’s admission to Mount Massive.

(End of transcript.)


	2. Chapter 2

' _I've been crawling on my belly_  
 _Clearing out what could've been_  
 _I've been wallowing in my own confused_  
 _And insecure delusions_ '  
\- Tool ' _Forty Six & 2'_

*

Summer eats away some of Eddie’s lingering melancholy. He can’t help but feel a little better in the sunshine, less like the walls are constantly boxing him in. He’s been out of Mount Massive Asylum for almost a full year, if he rounds up, and Eddie likes to. 

A year.

The shadows at night don’t hold a lot of mystery any more. He’s still got symptoms, but they’re not nearly so bad when it’s easier to feel good during the day.

“It’s so nice out today,” Dr. Ullah says, crossing her legs. She’s perched delicately on the bench next to him and has a paper cup from Starbucks in her hand. She brought Eddie one, too. It has his name written on it with a black marker in curling script. Coffee for her, hot chocolate for him. “I’m glad you agreed to do our session outside.”

“Wasted too many good days like this being trapped inside already,” Eddie says. Six months ago he didn’t know how to make small talk, but here he is sharing space with another person, relaxed enough to chat about the weather. “Always thought about running away to somewhere down south when I was a kid, but I don’t like bugs.”

“Do you know it still snows in the summer here sometimes?” Dr. Ullah asks.

“Guess that’s the price for living somewhere so pretty,” Eddie says. The courtyard is big and open, the compound built to squat against the foothills under heavy snow. He can easily see the Rockies over the roofline, looming in the distance with snow-capped tips even this late in the season. “You weren’t born in Colorado?”

Dr. Ullah smiles. “You know I wasn’t.”

“Always seems rude to ask,” Eddie says, picking at the little paper sleeve on his cup. “Doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Plenty of people are curious about it,” Dr. Ullah says. “Denver is a pretty big city, but I don’t expect little towns like Leadville have many immigrants.”

“Not much of anything other than bigots,” Eddie agrees. When he first met her, Eddie was more inclined towards suspicion of anyone that didn’t look and think like Eddie’s father. But Eddie’s father didn’t like anyone not exactly like him – not white, not a man, not American, not a devout Christian. “That’s pretty much all there ever was in Leadville. A steady export of them.”

Dr. Ullah laughs. He catches a flash of her teeth, her surprise and delight genuine, before she covers her mouth with her hand. He likes her a lot when she lets her psychiatrist’s mask slip, when that facade of doctor-patient dissolves just far enough that he can see that she’s not just being paid to not be scared of him, that she really does like him.

They keep it professional. It’s helpful for Eddie to maintain careful boundaries. He knows she has a husband that she goes home to, a house, a daughter that’s nearly an adult. She gives him a slow drip of personal information, casual inclusions that make him feel like he has a connection to the outside world without making him feel excluded.

She also sits outside with him and brings him hot chocolate because he’s not allowed to have coffee. He thinks maybe that’s what real kindness and love for other people looks like – little things you do for people when you aren’t obligated, aren’t asked to, just to make them happier.

“I suppose that must be true,” Dr. Ullah says, settling slowly from her brief fit of laughter. “Isolation and homogeneity can breed an unfortunate lack of empathy for people we perceive as being different from ourselves. We’re all biased and have to constantly work at disarming those assumptions based on new information we obtain, but if we surround ourselves with voices reaffirming those biases, it can become impossible to escape.”

“Is that why they assigned you to me?” Eddie asks. It wasn’t the worst idea. She’s everything his father always feared was ruining their country, but he’s come around pretty easily to the idea that his father was a pretty shitty source of truth on any subject. “So I could get some new information?”

“Oh no, Eddie,” Dr. Ullah says. She digs her thumbnail into the rim of her cup. “I volunteered for your case because I thought it was worthwhile.”

It’s a lot to think about. She picked him, just to try to help. He’s still learning to trust her brand of kindness.

“So you’re saying my father was the way he was because he didn’t know enough?” Eddie asks. That’s not quite the thing he wants to ask, but he doesn’t know how to make himself any clearer.

Eddie’s learned a lot since he started talking to Dr. Ullah, but sometimes he doesn’t feel even half as smart as he did before, knowing that there’s so much he still doesn’t know about the world. As his horizons expand, his sense of his place in things shrinks.

“I think in some part he probably closed himself off to new experiences. He’s dead now, so there’s no way for either of us to know what caused him to do the horrible things he did,” Dr. Ullah says. “When an abuser dies, sometimes it hurts the victims, too, because they get trapped in feeling like they’ll never get any closure.”

“What kind of closure could I ever want from him?” Eddie asks, tensing. She’s challenging him again and he’s grown accustomed to being uncomfortable with her, but that doesn’t mean he actually likes talking about the shit that was done to him.

“Sometimes people imagine a scenario in which they could somehow gain the approval of their abuser,” Dr. Ullah says. “Sometimes they want revenge, to hurt their abuser like their abuser hurt them. Sometimes they just want to ask why it happened in the first place.”

“I know why,” Eddie says, setting his hot chocolate down between them. He doesn’t want to spill it, and his hands are shaking. “I’m – evil.”

“I don’t think you’re evil, Eddie,” Dr. Ullah says patiently, even though this is a conversation that they keep rehashing. “And I don’t think that was ever true. Don’t you think that line of thinking takes away the responsibility an abuser has for their actions?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie says. He’s never — his father always said something real bad was inside Eddie, that it got in him deep, down to his bones, and needed to be purged, punished, so Eddie could be a real man, could see how wrong it was to want the things he wants.

Dr. Ullah turns a little to face him. “Eddie, what happened to you was outside of your control. It was done _to_ you. You had no say in it and no fault, because nothing was wrong with you, and nothing prompted it except your father’s continued decision to keep harming you.”

Eddie’s throat tightens and his eyes prickle with tears. “I should’ve been better — ”

“No,” she says, firm. “No, I can’t in good conscience let you finish that sentence. It’s hard for us to admit we’re helpless, because when we take away all of our own control in a situation, that means that what happened to us was senseless.”

He feels – bad. What he feels is _bad_. Sorry for himself, but even sorrier for anyone he’s hurt.

Eddie feels dread crawl up his spine when he asks, “What about Waylon Park?”

“This is the first time you’ve expressed interest in talking about Mr. Park with me,” Dr. Ullah says.

“I’m – I hurt Waylon Park. I tried to kill him,” Eddie says. “I know – we’ve talked about responsibility for my behavior under the influence and _custodianship_. You say it’s complicated, but it doesn’t change what happened.”

Dr. Ullah purses her lips, thoughtful. She doesn’t push him too much on the things he’s done, not yet, but she always ends up herding him there eventually. “Do you feel concerned for Waylon Park’s well-being?”

“Yes,” Eddie says, honestly. He’s thought of Waylon, not constantly, but often. The way thinking about Waylon makes him feel is difficult for him to communicate. “I never wanted to seem too interested.”

“Do you feel your interest is somehow inappropriate?” Dr. Ullah asks.

If he closes his eyes, he can still feel Waylon’s soft skin beneath his hand. His hand where someone’s hand shouldn’t be, not unless they’re a lover, not unless it's welcomed. “I think about – sex, yes.”

“With Waylon Park?” she asks, eyebrows raised. “Can you tell me a little more about that if you’re comfortable?”

“With men,” Eddie says and feels a bolt of fear. There are dots he’s been avoiding connecting out of terror that something awful is still living in his bones. “With men – and sometimes I think about what happened when I was touching Waylon Park. And how that was wrong. And maybe those things are related.”

Dr. Ullah is very quiet, except for the way her bracelets jangle when she places her cup on the bench next to Eddie’s. She doesn’t look at him for a moment, but he knows she’s not ignoring him. She’s giving him space, time to process. They’ve done this same uncomfortable dance more than a hundred times now, the track well-worn around Eddie’s anger, his anxiety, his self-recrimination.

“You’ve brought up several very important things at once, and I’d like to come back to those things if you’re open to them, but are you bringing him up now,” she says carefully, when she’s certain he has nothing else to say, “because you’re equating what your father did to you with what you did to Mr. Park during the riot?”

“It’s hard not to,” Eddie says. “It felt like I was waking up during the riot. Reality became the nightmare of what would happen if I didn’t make sure the life I was living was real and perfect for my father. I didn’t know – it was like everything was the opposite of what I want it to be now.”

“You’ve described that before and I have difficulty imagining you doing those things now.” She angles herself towards him and asks pointedly, “May I ask why you’re bringing this up now, specifically in regard to Mr. Park?”

Eddie wishes he were better at explaining himself, at extracting facts from the slurry of fear, insecurity, imagination, and hallucination plaguing him. “You said – sometimes people want closure from their abuser.”

“Do you think you could offer him any kind of closure he’d be satisfied with?” She says it gently, but the words still hurt.

“No,” Eddie says. That hurts to say, too. What happened was senseless. He holds onto that word like a talisman against self-hatred. He understands now, after months and months of agony, that he was also a victim of Murkoff’s vicious pursuit of – what? a few pennies on their share price? Greed and depravity? “But if it would be helpful to him for me to apologize — he could yell.”

Dr. Ullah doesn’t bother to stifle her smile. “I’ve met Mr. Park,” she says. “I can’t be certain from our brief acquaintance, but he seems to be very kind. I wouldn’t characterize him as someone who would likely yell.”

“You weren’t there,” Eddie bristles.

“I’ve seen the footage,” Dr. Ullah says. “And what I saw in those recordings isn’t the same person I see in front of me today.”

He doesn’t know how she can sit here and still say that. Eddie doesn’t need to see the footage. There are gaps, holes in his recounting of things, but where he can’t remember what he saw, he remembers what he heard, the rank stench of it all, his lurid, gory garden of failed brides.

“All I’m saying is that he can if it would make him feel better,” Eddie says, feeling mulish. He’s pointedly aware that he’s digging his heels again for no good reason.

“Would you _like_ him to yell?” she asks mildly. “I’m not certain I can recommend verbal abuse as a healthy part of your recovery process.”

“Well, whatever he wanted to say,” Eddie says, “I can listen.”

“I’ll see if I can facilitate communication through the law firm as long as you both consent,” Dr. Ullah says. “I can’t make any promises, but if my previous interactions with him have been anything to go by, he may be open to speaking to you. I know he’s visited some of the other survivors from Mount Massive that are still in medical care.”

It’s his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Do you mean that?”

“No promises,” she says. She puts her hand on Eddie’s shoulder, friendly, respectful.

“Thank you,” he says, and picks up his hot chocolate.

*

Waylon Park agrees to meet Eddie a week later. Eddie marks it on his calendar and on the morning of their meeting, he sits in the rec room staring at the clock with sweaty palms until an orderly comes to escort him to a private meeting room.

There are cameras in the corners, but the orderly closes the door behind him when he leaves. It’s the closest thing to privacy that they’re going to get.

They’re separated by a heavy plastic barrier, but it’s not scuffed and battered like a prison visitation booth, so it feels like Eddie can reach out and touch him if he really wants to. 

He wants to, because nothing about this feels quite real.

Waylon’s straight hair has grown out, dark at the crown of his head, the tips still blonde and just beginning to curl around his ears. He approaches the barrier with a limp and stands with his hands in his pockets, but shows no other visible signs of what happened to him at Mount Massive.

He's easily a full foot shorter than Eddie, maybe more, but he stands there watching Eddie with all the fearless self-assurance of a child observing a grizzly bear at the zoo.

Waylon Park apparently still has faith in cages, even if he personally knows the things they’re meant to hold.

Cleaned up, clothes well-pressed, dressed in casual but well-fitted attire, he looks handsome, his brown eyes set over a serious mouth.

He looks like someone who wouldn’t have given Eddie the time of day if they were both on the outside.

Eddie settles into one of the empty folding chairs, lowering himself carefully opposite Waylon, who mirrors him. Waylon’s eyes have been on him the second Eddie entered his line of sight, but nothing about his posture or expression indicates to Eddie that he’s afraid, or even nervous.

They look at each other. Eddie wonders what Waylon is thinking when his gaze sweeps over Eddie from head to toe.

“Hello.” Waylon breaks the tense silence first. “You look very, very well compared to the last time I saw you.”

Eddie shifts his weight uneasily. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t think you’d ever want to see me,” Waylon says. “I asked after you in the hospital, but they said you weren’t in good enough shape to have visitors.”

It’s rude to stare, but he can’t seem to stop. He’s looking at Waylon’s mouth, which is slanted ruefully. He’s fixated on it, like Waylon will speak at any second and absolution will pour forth. “No one ever told me.”

Something that roosts deep inside Eddie saw this man with his neat fingernails, his soft skin, the shallow dip of his throat above the vee of his shirt, and wanted to make a wife.

Eddie knows he’s not as smart as someone like Waylon, but he’s getting better at looking at how he feels about things. He’s not sure if it’s less painful to live with a mirage of a man than it is to pull down the iconography of Waylon Park that he’s holding in his mind and replace it with the real thing.

Eddie also knows, after a minute of looking, that he still wants to touch Waylon so badly he has to press his palms against his thighs to keep himself from doing something stupid and impulsive.

Waylon says carefully, “I guess they wouldn’t have. You were pretty out of it for a while, from what I heard.”

“I couldn’t walk for the first two months,” Eddie says. “I screamed a lot at the doctors and tried to fight my way out, so the rest of the time they kept me drugged.”

Waylon swallows visibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I thought you were dead when I left. I felt – guilty – ”

“You don’t have to do that,” Eddie says, pitching his voice low. Waylon’s eyes never leave him. “Whatever else happened, I’m sure you were more than justified to try to save yourself.”

“I could have tried a little harder,” Waylon says. “I made it out okay, after everything. Jeremy Blaire stabbed me on his way out, so I was on bed rest for a while between that and my leg. Do you remember that asshole? It doesn’t feel great to have a knife in you.”

“Yeah. He used to visit the patients personally.” Eddie furrows his brow. “Is that — are you okay?”

“I probably won’t be doing any woodworking any time soon, but I healed up pretty well and the therapists are helping me sort out the rest,” Waylon says.

“I don’t understand how you can say things like that,” Eddie says, low and miserable. Woodworking. _Woodworking_. Like nearly having a table saw taken to him is no worse than joking about a bad day.

“I’m sorry, I make some really fucking bad jokes these days. Lisa’s always on me to watch it around the boys. Is this — too weird for you?” Waylon asks, hesitating. “I feel like it’s pretty selfish of me to show up like this and ambush you with my shitty coping mechanisms.”

Lisa. The ex-wife from the papers. The boys. He has children. He’s in therapy, like Eddie.

Eddie turns that over for a second. He understands Waylon is getting help, too. Someone probably thought this might be helpful for him, too.

Eddie’s getting better at empathizing. Better at remembering, better at being vulnerable.

“‘Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.’ Are you a god-fearing man, Mr. Park?” Eddie asks.

Waylon shakes his head, a line of consternation between his brows. “I wasn’t raised religious, so I guess not.”

“I’m not either any more,” Eddie says. God was never in those asylum walls for anyone except for the men who thought they heard the devil speaking to them. “My mama made me memorize scripture. Never really got it, but sometimes I remember sayings, like that one. What do you think that last part means? ‘Be patient, bearing with one another in love.’”

“I guess it just means — I guess, to be patient when dealing with the people you care about,” Waylon says. “The people you love. Why?”

“The Lord commanded us to love thy neighbor,” Eddie says. “I always liked that part, even if I don’t like to think about God. Love thy neighbor. Be patient with the people you love, which I guess should be everybody.”

“We’re probably past neighborly,” Waylon says, and that sounds like something that should be a joke, but he has a strange look on his face that Eddie has a hard time parsing. He’s leaning forward, all his attention focused on Eddie.

“What do you mean by that?” Eddie asks.

“We were almost husband and wife,” Waylon says. He’s still smiling, but it’s more cautious, uncertain. “I’m apparently not a very good husband or a very good wife.”

Eddie feels his face heat. What he did was _disgusting,_ and the way his pulse jumps now in response to Waylon feels almost as ugly. “I don’t see how that’s funny.”

“It’s not all that funny, though, is it?” Waylon asks. For the first time since Eddie’s sat down he sees Waylon’s expression falter. “But shared trauma like that is a kind of intimacy just as much as a marriage, isn’t it? We have something in common no one else does.”

“Almost killing each other?” Eddie asks. He feels small just saying it.

“Isn’t that a kind of intimacy?” Waylon asks.

“Killing someone isn’t intimate,” Eddie says. “It’s — impersonal.”

Waylon’s expression falters. “It felt pretty personal to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says.

Waylon doesn’t accept his apology. He says, “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, in relation to me, trying to make sense of it. We almost had a wedding, after all.”

“That wouldn’t have been marriage,” Eddie says. “I was never looking for a wife.”

“A husband?” Waylon asks softly and when Eddie averts his eyes, he can still feel the weight of the look Waylon’s giving him.

“Marriage is the job of a man and a woman.” His mama and his father were married. Eventually his father’s hand came down on her, too. Eddie knows now, a few decades on, that sometimes marriage has very little to do with love. “Anyways, marriage doesn’t always mean love.”

“What’s something better than marriage that involves love, then? Or forgiveness?” Waylon asks, watching Eddie steadily. That seems significant. Eddie doesn’t want to read into it, but the private intimacy of it settles over him like a blanket, suffocating. “I think I’d like to try that next time, given the option.”

Eddie’s trembling. He doesn’t realize he’s on his feet until he’s got his balled fist against the plastic barrier. “Two men can’t love each other.”

He feels like a lie as soon as he says it.

He’s gone and trapped himself here with Waylon Park and now it feels like there’s no air left in the room. Waylon Park, who’s probably only half Eddie’s weight but twice as brave, who Eddie almost killed, almost violated, is now talking to him about love and forgiveness like those things are still in easy reach for someone like Eddie.

“That’s not true.” Waylon stands up and mirrors him instead of backing away, but he slides his open palm up the surface of the barrier and lays it over where Eddie’s fist is resting. His expression softens. “That’s not what I was trying to say about us at all, but what you just said isn’t true.”

There’s a short, wide hole in the barrier, about chest level, to pass paperwork through. Eddie’s hands are big, but he thinks he can reach through if he really wants to.

Get a hand on Waylon. Get both his hands on Waylon.

That idea swells in his mind until it’s the only thing he can think of.

Waylon either doesn’t know or doesn’t care. Eddie’s a bear at the zoo, a lion, kept locked up his entire life and hungry for something he’s never even experienced.

It kicks around below the surface of his brain, just out of reach.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Eddie says, pained. He has nothing left to give, even if he could rip that awful part of him out somehow, place it at Waylon’s feet. “I can’t give back what I took.”

He has: cat, ball, zebra, honesty. A clock with a missing face. His dead father in his room at night. His mama pinning him into a little church girl’s new Sunday dress, telling him to hold still, to stay quiet while she put darts into the skirt. He has bodies at the end of a rope, singing _heigh ho_ while they go up, up, _up_ to fill the holes in his mind eaten away by the Morphogenic Engine, the gap between who he is and what his father expected him to be.

“I don’t want anything back,” Waylon says. He’s so close his breath fogging the plastic. “I’d offer to hug you but they won’t let me come all the way into your ward.”

Eddie asks, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you?”

“No, of course not,” Waylon says, like the question genuinely puzzles him, “not anymore.”

_ Men don’t hold hands either,  _ Eddie wants to say, but Waylon’s hand is much smaller and he offers it through the barrier before Eddie can object. He doesn’t ask, just does what Eddie’s been thinking of doing.

His palm is smooth beneath Eddie’s calloused fingertips. Eddie should’ve been the one to ask permission to touch Waylon, because now that he’s taken the offer he doesn’t want to stop.

Waylon’s fingers slot between Eddie’s and he flexes them, squeezing Eddie’s hand reassuringly. “Whatever you’re feeling right now is okay. I get it, I really do. It’s really intense.”

Eddie presses his forehead against the barrier, straining until the structure creaks. Waylon is right there, on his toes, face smashed against the plastic, the position ungainly and a little painful on Eddie’s jackknifed wrist.

They must look so stupid.

It doesn’t _feel_ stupid, though. It feels like mercy.

“You’re okay,” Waylon says, squeezing harder. “It’s all okay.”

Eddie realizes he’s crying, in soft, wet snuffles, and turns his face away for a second to wipe at his face with the sleeve of his free hand. There are tears in Waylon’s eyes, too. Eddie says, “This is awful.”

“Yeah, it’s really terrible,” Waylon agrees. He closes his eyes, resting his head against the plastic, and sighs heavily. “God, has anyone ever told you that you're massive? I thought I was imagining it. Here I was thinking about confronting you, but I’d have to climb a stool to look you in the eye.”

Eddie releases his death grip on Waylon’s hand, embarrassed. Waylon recedes a little, but keeps his hand through the barrier.

The thought occurs to Eddie. He croaks, vision watery with tears, “I could just pick you up.”

Waylon, as it turns out, is the kind of man who laughs with his whole body. He tips his head back to do it, covering his mouth with one hand, eyes closed, while he shakes. Eddie’s chest floods with warmth and his heart tightens like someone’s squeezing it.

His laughter subsides into a winded gasp; his eyes are rimmed with tears, but this time he doesn’t look sad. Eddie isn’t sure why what he said was so funny, but he can apparently make Waylon laugh.

A step in the right direction. Or maybe not the right one, but a better one.

They both start when the orderly on duty knocks and opens the door curiously. “Everything all right in here, Mr. Gluskin, Mr. Park?”

“We’re fine, thank you,” Waylon says. He hasn’t looked away from Eddie.

“Sorry to interrupt. Five minute warning, though,” the orderly says. “If you want to wrap up, I’ll come back and collect Mr. Gluskin.”

“Thanks,” Waylon says casually, like they weren't’ just in a compromising position and Eddie wasn’t crying, then when the orderly vanishes, “ah, shit. Can you call people? Text? Let me give you my number. Don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t have a personal phone, but the facility has them,” Eddie says. He knows he won’t call. He wants to. The thought of picking up the phone, pressing it to his ear, connecting to Waylon on the other end feels like the sharp edge of a knife.

Dangerous.

“Hang on,” Waylon says, reaching for the pen chained to the small counter on the wall. He fishes a receipt out of his pocket and scribbles his number on it. “Here. I mean it. You can call me, but don’t do it if you don’t want to.”

“Is that a good idea?” Eddie asks.

“Probably not,” Waylon says seriously, “but think about it anyways?”

The door opens again. It doesn’t feel like it’s been five whole minutes. Waylon sticks the paper with his number through just as the orderly prompts, “Mr. Gluskin.”

Eddie takes it. He clutches it in his fist all the way back to his room.

*

Dr. Ullah brings Eddie a plant to their next appointment, a small variegated pothos in an equally small plastic pot. It’s alive, a real living plant. She has to inform him per facility policy that he’s to keep it locked in his room at all times, away from patients who might be a danger to themselves if they break the pot.

She’s written some information about how to care for it in neat print on a piece of notebook paper, which he carefully folds and places in his pocket. He’ll put it in his papers, next to Waylon Park’s number.

Some of the other patients have plants. Caring for living things is good for them. She’s transparent that it’s an exercise, part of his therapy, an experiment for them both.

He likes it anyways.

He grew up in an old house originally built as a company-funded homestead for one of the mining operations that used to exist back in the 1880s out the way by Leadville. Miners looking to strike gold and silver would move their families into cheap, ramshackle houses and work long, dangerous hours hunting for gold during the years after the Pike’s Peak rush, then silver and black sand for decades after.

The house had a garden room on it, tacked on as an afterthought for his mama. It wasn’t a real four seasons room like the nice houses up the road had, but a patchwork of salvaged framing and mismatched windows stolen from the construction dump site his uncle worked at sometimes.

His mama filled it up with plants and on nice days in the spring and fall. When the drafts weren’t too awful for a boy of six and his father was away at work, Eddie would sit under her work table. He’d read Bible verses to her with excruciating difficulty while she mended threadbare work clothes for five cents a garment for war vets at the American Legion.

He puts the plant in his lap and holds it while he describes the encounter with Waylon to Dr. Ullah in excruciating detail. He’s been reading more, trying to be better at finding the correct words to say how he feels, but it still takes him time to struggle through it.

She listens quietly, takes notes, asks him if there’s anything he wants to talk about when he’s done speaking.

“That’s not normal, is it?” Eddie asks. Holding hands with a killer. Dr. Ullah hums at his use of the word _normal_ , faintly disapproving. He tries again. “It’s not appropriate to do what we did.” 

“Intense emotional reactions are fairly common,” Dr. Ullah says. “The degree of appropriateness is ultimately determined by how the two of you feel about what happened. Do you feel like he crossed a line?”

“I’m having dreams about him now,” Eddie says. “The last two nights.”

“Dreams are also fairly common after intensely emotional encounters,” Dr. Ullah says. “It seems natural to dream of Mr. Park, especially since you shared such a traumatic event together. Can you tell me a little about your dreams?”

Eddie feels his face go hot. The little plastic saucer under his plant creaks when he squeezes it, so he forces himself to relax.

“I dream about Waylon in the asylum,” he says, “and I find him like I did before, but I want something different. In the dream, I know it’s him — I – from what I can remember, I couldn’t tell the difference between the others. Just him. When I was doing those awful things, I still remembered his face out of everyone and I only saw him for a minute.”

“Is this dream recurring?” Dr. Ullah asks.

“Yeah. The first time I just woke up, felt sick,” Eddie says. “I dreamed about him sometimes before I talked to him, and that always went real bad. I hurt someone, or I hurt Waylon, and I woke up and wanted to spill my guts.”

“To be clear, these previous dreams differ from the ones you’ve had recently?” Dr. Ullah takes a note, and he turns the little pot in his hand. He doesn’t feel angry anymore when she takes notes. She lets him see them if he wants.

“No, it’s — yeah.” He was going to lie. He has to stop lying. “They’ve changed,” Eddie says. He lowers his gaze to the floor, shoulders hunched. “I think I might be sick.”

“Do you need a nurse?” Dr. Ullah shifts in her seat, reaching towards her phone, brow pinched with concern.

“No, no, not like — I don’t have a cold or anything. I mean, I think I might be having — having — ” All he can think of is Waylon’s soft thigh under his mouth, Waylon’s taut ballsack under his tongue, Waylon’s legs slung over Eddie’s shoulders while he tilts his head back like one of those girls in his cousin’s glossy Playboy magazines. “Impure thoughts.”

Dr. Ullah purses her lips thoughtfully. “Can you tell me a little more about what you mean by ‘impure thoughts’?”

“Sex,” he says. He wishes himself invisible. If the floor opened up and swallowed him whole, he’d start believing in some kind of god again. “Sex dreams. I chase Waylon Park down, and then we have sex.”

“Is Mr. Park consenting in these intimate dreams?” Dr. Ullah asks. She’s not judging him. He has to remember that.

“Yes,” Eddie exhales, shuddering. He feels trapped by himself, what he’s done, who he is, wishing he could peel himself out of his own skin and be someone different, with different desires. “Very.”

Dr. Ullah puts her pen down and sets her notebook aside. “Eddie,” she says. “Can you count to twenty for me?”

He does, then she makes him do it again, backwards down to one. By the time he finishes, his breathing has evened out a little. “This is hard to talk about. I hurt him.”

“It’s very difficult, yes, but I think how you feel about this situation is very important,” Dr. Ullah says. “What happened to you is a deep violation of yourself, both in your childhood and under the care of Mount Massive’s staff, and even though I know you feel guilty for what happened to Waylon, you were certainly unable to think and act for yourself.”

“But I did it,” Eddie objects.

“Those can both be true,” Dr. Ullah says. “That you performed an action and that you were under extreme duress are both true. A man with a gun to his head can’t consent, but a man who isn’t aware he’s even holding that gun _also_ can’t make a clear choice between right and wrong.”

Eddie finally puts down the plant on the table between them and stares at it. “Then what do the dreams mean?”

Dr. Ullah pours herself more tea. Steam curls from the cup and Eddie watches her stir sugar into it while she deliberates her answer. “Dream interpretation is tricky, especially when there isn’t a concrete understanding of dreaming in the first place. But it’s not uncommon to imagine a moment of trauma going very differently, even favorably.”

“I’ve never dreamed about that kind of thing before,” Eddie says.

“Never?” She raises one eyebrow, “You’ve thought about it, though. We’ve discussed it.”

“Thinking isn’t the same as dreaming,” Eddie says. It sounds silly out loud. “I don’t think I’ve dreamed about it before.”

Dr. Ullah says, “There’s considerably less control. And sometimes more honesty, but not always. Do you think that you’d be attracted to Mr. Park if you met during other circumstances?”

“I don’t know that I am now,” Eddie says. He rubs his hands over his face, knuckling at his eyes. “I don’t know him.”

“You can be attracted to someone you don’t know, or someone you only know briefly. Do you plan to continue contact with him?” Dr. Ullah asks.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. He’s got a life out there,” Eddie says. “It’s not like we can be friends.”

“Patients are encouraged to have friends,” Dr. Ullah says, “and make connections to the outside world. But you aren’t obligated to be friends with Waylon Park, or anyone else for that matter.”

“Is it okay to have friends that you dream about?” Eddie asks doubtfully. “Wanting sex with other men isn’t — normal. Is it?”

Dr. Ullah smiles broadly. “Attraction is difficult to navigate even in mundane situations – a coworker, or a regular at a coffee shop, or between members of a casual social group. I understand what happened to you attached some intense stigma to sexual relations between men, but I assure you it’s neither uncommon nor wrong. It may even fade when you get to know him better.”

Eddie tries to let that sink past the surface. Tries to let it in. The idea feels wrong, though, feels like even thinking that way is dangerous. If it’s true, he doesn’t deserve what happened to him, and that straddles the painful gap that he couldn’t ever have been better, couldn’t ever have done anything differently.

It’s all been senseless.

“It makes me sad,” Eddie says.

“Could you talk a little more about that?” Dr. Ullah finally asks when he doesn’t volunteer any further information for a few moments. “I’d like to understand what you mean.”

“If I can’t pick,” Eddie says. “That means I never had any chance of ever making him happy.”

Dr. Ullah’s expression does something complicated. He watches her struggle with something, maybe something parallel to what he’s struggling with.

She’s a person, too, and he knows after working with her that she’s kind. She cares. He knows she’s moved by what happened to him, horrified.

“Eddie,” Dr. Ullah says, “I don’t believe in calling people evil. I don’t think that it’s a useful word when our minds and motivations are so complicated. But what they did – ”

“Had nothing to do with changing me,” Eddie says, before she has to say it. They’ve talked about this topic at length, painfully. It’s easier to agree with her while she’s sitting there, reasonable, helping him – harder once the lights are out and he’s alone. “So why can’t I stop wanting to be different?”

“It takes a long time to dig out those hooks, Eddie,” Dr. Ullah says. “Sometimes we never get them out, we just live with them. The things that happen to us, especially painful things, leave emotional scars, just like a knife can leave a scar.”

“I feel stuck,” Eddie says. “I’m going in circles. I can’t stop feeling this way about – about men – and I can’t stop wanting to change how I feel about men. I’m ashamed of both things. So that’s all I think about.”

“I can’t tell you I know how that feels,” Dr. Ullah says. “I’m a woman who comfortably loves a man, which flies unnoticed in the face of the public. As far as anyone who has an opinion on that is concerned, who I love isn’t even a point of interest. But I know that it must be extremely hard to feel like who you are is unlovable, and to have that idea reinforced in such an awful way.”

“I can’t imagine anyone loving me at all, not after what I did, even if I was different,” Eddie says.

Dr. Ullah says, “I think that you’ll be happily surprised, if you give yourself the chance.”

Eddie wants to believe that. “Do you think you can love people who hurt you?”

“I think that it’s very fair to say that it’s often the people we love the most who end up hurting us,” Dr. Ullah says. “Or are you asking about something different?”

“Just – Waylon said something,” Eddie says. It felt like a secret, but he’s trying not to have secrets here. Keeping them doesn’t keep him safe.

“Would you like to share it with me?” Dr. Ullah asks.

Waylon’s skin was warm under his fingers, his pulse leaping. He wants to feel that again.

“He asked if I thought almost killing one another is a form of intimacy,” Eddie says. “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“I think that if you feel comfortable discussing it with him, you should ask him to clarify,” Dr. Ullah says. “Mr. Park has made it very publicly known that he’s a big supporter of therapy. He’s a separate person, with an internal journey entirely his own, and he’s the only person who can clarify his thoughts.”

“I can call him,” Eddie says. He has that option now. “I could ask.”

“Only if you’re ready,” Dr. Ullah says. “You’re the one in control here. That’ll always be true.”

Waylon’s cramped handwriting. Ten digits, a few short moments of ringing, and he can ask. He can ask any time he wants.

He says, “Not yet.”

*

Three hundred and sixty five days after Eddie’s admission to St. Stephen’s, and just shy of a year and a half after he was pulled from Mount Massive Asylum, barely alive, by the Leadville Colorado EMT crew, Eddie has an evaluation for release.

His case has been circulating in the court system like a bad penny. No one’s been able to come to a consensus on whether or not Eddie deserves to be locked up for the rest of his life.

They escort Eddie to a hearing room at the courthouse. It’s a small set of chambers near the back, for small hearings. There are no news crews and only one lawyer from the DA’s office for show. His own legal team sits next to him at a low table stacked with reference material. Alan Book is there and greets him quietly when Eddie sits down.

Eddie likes Book a lot more now than when he was shoving a microphone in Eddie’s face ten minutes after they met.

At the front of the room, four men and women, all about Eddie’s age, are paging through binders, speaking quietly among themselves. They’re all doctors, not a federal prison parole board.

He doesn’t expect Waylon Park to be sitting alone in the seating marked off for any Eddie’s victims that want to give a statement. He has a little paper nameplate in front of him and he’s staring steadily down at something in his hands.

When the bailiff uncuffs Eddie, Waylon looks up at him.

Eddie stares back. Waylon’s brow furrows.

“We’ll be starting soon,” Book whispers. “They’re trying to get this one off the books and McGinnis and Perez have a track record for being pretty aggressive about granting parole in cases like yours.”

Cases like his. He doesn’t think there are any cases like his.

Two out of four potentially on his side, according to Book. He just has to sing for his supper one more time and he can go back to St. Stephen’s and his clockwork, routine life, his group therapy, to smuggling in treats for Francine.

“Thank you all for joining us here today,” one of the men says. “Mr. Gluskin, I can see from the records that you’ve spent a lot of time in and out of these kinds of hearings, so if you could confirm your name and your Colorado DOC inmate number for the record?”

There’s a small microphone on the table in front of him and he leans into it to speak. “Yes, sir. My name is Edward Gluskin. Number is 120211.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Gluskin. Could you tell us who you’re being represented by this morning?”

“My attorney, Mr. Alan Book,” Eddie confirms.

Back and forth, confirming he accepted notice of his hearing and his signature. He’s introduced to the board – James Clark, Stella McGinnis, Paul Andrews, and Carla Perez – his case numbers listed, his charges, his parole eligibility date, all for the record, and they rehash the Colorado risk assessment guidelines. His caseworker confirms that nothing has changed Eddie’s eligibility date.

“There’s quite a lot here, but I think we’re all pretty familiar with the details of Mount Massive Asylum,” Clark says. “Since the Murkoff Corporation criminal case is still ongoing, I’ll refrain from opining further than to say that what happened to the patients at the asylum was an absolute travesty, but we have an ethical duty to consider your parole in a fair and consistent manner, exactly the same as any other inmate. Do you understand that, Mr. Gluskin?”

“Yes, sir,” Eddie says. They’re not going to go easy on him just because he’s had a hard time. That’s the message, loud and clear.

“I think we can all agree,” McGinnis says. “There’s no reason not to jump right in since we’re all familiar with current events. Your risk rating for reoffense is extraordinarily low, Mr. Gluskin. You’ve shown tremendous improvement in cognitive function, social engagement at St. Stephen’s, and a commitment to continued therapy. Dr. Alice Ullah in particular has written an extremely glowing recommendation of your behavior and progress.”

He didn’t know. He feels grateful. He’s never had a therapist recommendation for parole before. “I understand. Thank you, ma’am. I’m ready to answer your questions.”

“Mr. Gluskin,” Clark says, “can you tell us a little more about the circumstances surrounding the three women you murdered in 1985?”

At least they don’t ask him about his father first. At least not that, not yet. He feels the crushing terror of having to relive that nightmare in front of Waylon ease just a little.

“I was nineteen,” Eddie says. “I was working in a kitchen in a nursing home in Leadville as a prep cook. I’d been there a few months and they just started showing me how to do work other than washing dishes. The girls worked there too, three student nurses doing clinical rotations for school.”

“Were they friends of yours?” Clark asks.

“Not really, no. After what happened was in the papers, no one really wanted to be friends. I only got hired because the super took pity on me,” Eddie says. “They used to come eat lunch in the cafeteria and talk to me on my break sometimes.”

“If the girls were casual acquaintances, could you give us the reason why you were found by police in the personal home of Ms. Maria Andretti?”

He hasn’t heard that name in almost twenty years. He remembers her pale face, smudged mascara, how easy it had been to peel her open.

Remembers how horrified he’d been when he realized he wasn’t dressing one of his mother’s mannequins. When what he was cutting wasn’t satin and lace.

He’d begged the police officers that found him to shoot him. Told them he was dangerous. Cried until he could only gurgle incomprehensibly when they asked for his name and if he understood his rights.

That part hadn’t made it into the police report.

“They asked me if I wanted to have a private party,” Eddie says. “They took me back to Maria’s house and got high, and then they brought out a camcorder and asked if I wanted to make a porno. Maria said she’d heard from some of the guys in the kitchen that I had a big dick, and she wanted to have a little fun.”

He doesn’t look at Waylon. This is all public record. Everyone knows.

“Did you agree to their advances?” Clark asks. His face is impassive, but Eddie can’t help but remember his humiliation. He doesn’t remember killing the girls, just the before and after, what they said.

“They were all real pretty,” Eddie says. He always heard the kitchen boys talking about them like they were something else, all three of them with blonde hair just like his mama. “I think I wanted them to like me. I thought maybe one of them would marry me if I was good to them. But they turned the camera on and I couldn’t — ”

He’s staggered by the shame. He clenches his fists on the table and looks down, trying to fight the sharp, rising edge of anxiety.

McGinnis doesn’t make him say it. “In the recording, Maria Andretti questions the reason for your sexual performance.”

“She called me a kiddy diddler like my father,” Eddie says, low and angry. “I’d — I’d _never_. I killed those girls with my own hands and I’ll live with that until the day I die, but I didn’t do that.”

“Your psychiatric records have never shown any inclination,” McGinnis says gently. “Not so much as a suggestion, Mr. Gluskin. Your defense used your history with your father as a smokescreen for proving your diminished capacity?”

Eddie stiffens. “Yes, ma’am. I believe so.”

“Frankly, I find that to be a horrifying exploitation of your trauma,” McGinnis says. Eddie relaxes fractionally. He tries not to look at Waylon or wonder what Waylon thinks about that. “That you suffer from schizophrenia is also now extremely well-documented. I don’t believe that any of your therapists have ever determined that there’s an extreme risk of further psychosis as long as you rigorously keep up treatment.”

“I’m still being treated,” Eddie says. “I take my medication every day. St. Stephen’s has been helping. I don’t want to hurt anybody else. I never wanted to hurt anybody in the first place.”

“No one is implying you did,” McGinnis says, but she glances at Clark as if she isn’t so certain. “The matter of your incarceration is settled. Your sentence was served three times over and your legal team has done an excellent job of calling attention to the fact that there was some record keeping that could be regarded as questionable at best. The Murkoff Corporation case criminal case hasn’t been settled yet, but we can certainly confirm from the individual settlements that there is concrete evidence of record tampering by staff at Mount Massive Asylum.”

Perez speaks up, “If no one else has any immediate questions, I think we can open the floor to outside statements. Mr. Waylon Park would like to petition the panel for an opportunity to speak.”

Clark, who seems to be eager to hear any condemnation, says, “As Eddie Gluskin’s only surviving victim, I’d welcome the opportunity for Mr. Park to speak.”

McGinnis glances at him. “Mr. Park. At your leisure.”

Waylon stands to address the board. He has a piece of paper, but he doesn’t seem to need it, and he looks somber in a button up shirt and tie. “Thank you for the opportunity to speak.”

“I hope you all know that I’ve been a strong advocate for compassionate treatment for the patients rescued from Mount Massive Asylum. I hope you all know that I was personally victimized by Eddie Gluskin,” Waylon says. “I nearly died.”

Eddie’s heart plummets. Waylon glances down at his paper and he balls it up before dropping it on the table in front of him.

He says, “What no one seems concerned about is that I tortured Eddie Gluskin. There are laws that protect soldiers from insubordination if they know what they’re being ordered to do is immoral or unethical. I fixed a few lines of code and helped fry a tortured man’s brain after he begged me to help him because I was more afraid of debt collectors than of being responsible for someone else’s pain.”

“Waylon — ” Eddie says.

Waylon’s head whips around and he stares at Eddie hard. 

“Mr. Gluskin, please allow Mr. Park to speak,” McGinnis says. “Mr. Park — ”

“It’s okay,” Waylon says. “I’ve been through a lot of therapy. I was angry for a long time. I feel like a coward. But I was aware of choices I was making. The press has been incredibly compassionate about my part in what happened, and no one is holding it against me. I think he deserves the same graciousness and the same second chance. He’s been in prison since he was nineteen. I think you should let him go. That’s — that’s all I have to say.”

It’s not at all what Eddie expects Waylon to say. Waylon’s still looking at him, but the way he’s looking is different. He’s looking at Eddie like he cares, like he looked at Eddie when they met a few months back in St. Stephen’s.

Even though Eddie never called Waylon like he asked. It seems bad form to stare at Waylon across the hearing room, but Waylon is looking at him just as steadily while the board discusses quietly amongst themselves.

The board is speaking, but Eddie doesn’t hear what they say.

Waylon lights up, turns to look at them.

“Congratulations, Mr. Gluskin,” McGinnis says. “Mr. Gluskin?”

“I apologize,” he says. “Could you repeat that?”

“I said, congratulations, Mr. Gluskin. We believe you’ve been a model patient committed to self-improvement. We don’t think there’s any reason to drag this out for any longer,” McGinnis says. “We’re moving for your parole to be granted as soon as eligible and your conservatorship to be dissolved. You’ll no longer be legally compelled to stay at St. Stephen’s for treatment beyond the end of the month.”

Clark looks a little pinched, but whatever objections he has are a lost opportunity. The board is already packing up their belongings.

“What?” Eddie asks, stunned. “What does that mean?”

Book turns to him, “Eddie, you can leave if you want to. We have some paperwork and there will be a few conditions, but after we get it sorted out you don’t have to stay at St. Stephen’s if you don’t want to.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> look, I know I wrote this but I'm also not ever taking any personal responsibility for Waylon Park and his behavior

' _All my nightmares escaped my head_  
_Bar the door, please don't let them in_ '  
\- Radical Face ' _Welcome Home, Son_ '

*

The catch is the ankle bracelet. 

GPS tracking. An alarm if he takes it off. He has to live with it for a whole year. It’s waterproof, so at least he doesn’t have to bag it up in the shower.

Eddie almost balks at that, but he’s so close. All he has to do is keep his head down for a year. Show up to his appointments. Take his drug tests. Not hurt himself or anyone else.

Small price to pay, everyone says. He’s never really made friends with any of the other patients. He’s never been great with making friends with anyone. But he stops and says goodbye to Francine.

For the first week on the outside he thinks about recommitting himself voluntarily. He has a social worker who goes through a checklist with him and makes sure he has groceries in the house and his medications on hand. The law firm sends an intern to help him get his paperwork in order: identification, lease, bank account, finances.

The firm has power of attorney now that St. Stephen’s is officially out of the picture as his legal conservator, so all Eddie has to do is listen carefully and say yes or no. He’s not really sure what the stacks of paperwork mean that they can do with his assets, but he knows when he looks at the balances in his accounts and on the statements they’ve printed out for him, he has more money from the private damages settlement from Mount Massive Asylum than he knows what to do with.

The law firm takes the liberty of signing a month to month lease to him in a small, ten apartment complex within walking distance of a grocery store and a public park. He’s on the second floor and the door has three locks on it, which makes him feel safer.

After that, he’s alone most of the week. Him and his thoughts. That’s harder than he expected it to be, even though he’s spent most of his life alone. Being alone with an infinite number of choices feels suffocating after the predictability of living on someone else’s schedule for so long.

Simple decisions are difficult. The thought of buying his own groceries is almost overwhelming some days, and the first couple of weeks are filled with more anxiety than he’s felt in decades. He doesn’t leave the apartment for the first eleven days except for his scheduled therapy appointments.

Eddie and Dr. Ullah talk a lot about adjustment. He feels like he can’t make choices for himself and she pushes and pushes like she’s always pushed. Eddie doesn’t need to be dragged headlong into self-reflection any more, and he doesn’t lie to her about how he feels, but he bristles at every little suggestion.

His social worker introduces him to online shopping and helps him pick out a laptop. Shows him how to use it one afternoon over a couple of cheeseburgers, sitting at one of the tables at a fast food restaurant.

It takes him a whole month to work up the courage to order a pizza by himself for the first time.

He sits in the middle of his empty living room floor and eats the entire thing, crust and all, licking his fingers clean.

After that, it’s easier.

The apartment was a blank canvas when he moved in; no curtains, only cheap plastic blinds. No couch, no television. Two bar stools and a polished wooden bowl that he keeps filled with apples and oranges. A queen sized bed with a single pillow.

It’s the nicest place Eddie’s ever lived.

The first permanent thing Eddie bought for himself was a toaster. Sixty dollars plus shipping, it still feels like an indulgence. He’d unwrapped it on the white tile of his kitchen floor, discarding shreds of cellophane and cardboard litter, and burnt two pieces of toast in it.

A month later, he still wipes it down carefully every time he uses it, but he’s not burning his toast any more.

Online ordering is a blessing. His curtains are deep blue and block out the sun. He has a little handmade nightlight in the shape of a moon plugged into the outlet next to his bed. He still has night terrors sometimes, even the pills don’t help with that, and the light helps him orient himself when he wakes up, a cheerful beacon when he rouses confused by what’s real or not.

There’s a couch being delivered Thursday and he’s got his eye on a television so he can sit and watch Animal Planet. But there are programs on the internet, too, so sometimes he just puts on videos of peoples’ fish tanks or underwater seascapes and watches them while he practices sewing buttons onto scraps of cloth to help his fine motor skills.

Eddie’s never been to the ocean before. He thinks one day when the ankle bracelet is off, he’d like to go. He’s figuring out there are a lot of things he’d like to try. The world moves a lot faster now than he remembers it at nineteen, seems a lot bigger.

His medications are in the bathroom and a strict schedule has been penciled in on a piece of paper taped to the mirror in Dr. Ullah’s neat print. There’s a smiley face at the bottom and two phone numbers below that. Office number and a personal cell phone, which he programmed into his own the first night.

He likes to look at the list when he’s brushing his teeth and remind himself that someone out there cares about him, is there waiting if he needs anything.

The apartment has two bedrooms. The other he’s slowly converting to a crafting workshop. It has a handful of plants – areca palms and a spider plant in a big blue macrame holder hanging from the ceiling by the large window – and a worktable. He’s got a few dress forms on the way and he’s got an appointment in a few weeks to meet with a carpenter to get an estimate on enough fabric storage racks to hold the wealth of fabric he’s ordered.

Eddie managed to get his hands on a good Singer sewing machine, still sitting in the box. He thinks he might make a quilt from the sample scraps.

Waste not, want not, his mother used to say.

He has an odd feeling of being watched when he thinks of her. He doesn’t turn around. He makes some toast, butters it, and wipes his hands on cheap brown napkins from the sandwich shop down the road. Maybe he should buy a dining room set. Get some nice cloth napkins, practice embroidery.

Sometimes the pills aren’t enough even with the lights on.

It’s easier if he keeps busy. He’s accustomed to being alone, but he’s not accustomed to the knowledge that, any time he wants, he can leave. The world seems enormous outside his front door and it puts him on edge if he lets himself think about it for too long.

Eddie cleans up dinner, washes his hands, and thinks about calling Dr. Ullah. He tries not to, but the panic is new and he pushes himself to the edge of exhaustion worrying about what will happen if he leaves his apartment.

In search of something to do, he rummages through a kitchen drawer and pulls out a cream folder with a stack of forms and documents from St. Stephen’s and the court cases. He has a filing cabinet now; it arrived earlier and he gave it a home next to the small desk where he keeps his phone and the laptop, so all that’s left to do is sort and file his important paperwork.

The piece of paper with Waylon Park’s number falls out when he opens it.

He stares at it, afraid that it’s some sort of hallucination.

Waylon Park.

Waylon Park’s hand in his, easily dwarfed by Eddie’s big mitts.

Waylon Park with Eddie’s blood on his face.

Waylon Park crying silently, wetly while Eddie undresses him, bathes him, breathes in the smell of his clean skin.

Eddie drops the paper and covers his eyes.

Waylon Park’s breath fogging up the plastic barrier in a visiting room at 3:08 PM on an unassuming Friday afternoon, his coat collar damp with rain, slipping Eddie his number, asking him to call, to text.

Eddie never did. 

He couldn’t find Waylon’s number after the court case and his belongings from St. Stephen’s were gathered up, when he was still riding high enough on the thrill of release that he couldn’t even think of his own shame. Once he was alone in his own place for the first time in his entire life, he was so overwhelmed he didn’t even think about it now.

But here it is in Waylon’s hastily-scrawled handwriting and he’s thinking about it. Waylon’s twos have little loops in them, whimsical.

He scoops it up with the rest of his paperwork and takes it to his desk. He puts the number on his laptop keyboard and tries to ignore it while he files the rest of the documents. Halfway through writing out the labels for his folders, he raises his head from where he’s hunched over and looks at the paper.

It’s almost eleven at night. It’s too late to text, he reasons with himself. Definitely too late to call.

Visiting hours are between nine in the morning and four in the afternoon. Hours when Eddie can still remember how to draw a clock, recite: cat, ball, zebra, honesty, cat, ball, zebra, honesty —

Hours when Eddie doesn’t hallucinate his dead father at the foot of his bed, tugging at the corner of Eddie’s sheets, sometimes still there even if Eddie takes his pills, even if Eddie leaves all the lights on.

He finishes the labels and sets the number aside. Browses curiously through some online shops. He’s gone to the grocery store for himself several times now and keeps walking past fresh flowers, but he doesn’t have a vase and the store doesn’t sell any he likes, so he spends some time browsing through an array of glassware. 

He spends a few hundred dollars without even trying: vases, glass hurricanes for candles, candles for the glass hurricanes, an empty fish bowl to fill with plants. There’s a beautiful cherry serving tray with silver handles and he buys it on impulse. He’s never been allowed to eat breakfast in bed, but he thinks he’d like to try.

It takes him a long time to navigate putting in his shipping and credit card information and he mutters aloud to himself while he hunts down each letter for his home address on the small keyboard one at a time.

He likes using the computer. It means he doesn’t have to talk to someone in person, but he’s still slow.

Eddie unlocks his phone to dismiss the email notification that his order has been placed.

Waylon Park.

He picks up the number and fumbles through adding a new contact and opening a new message. He’s sent a few texts in response to check-ins from Dr. Ullah and his social worker, but this is the first time he’s initiating a conversation. He almost accidentally calls Waylon instead of sending a text, but he ends it before it starts ringing. 

_Hello Mr. Park, this is Eddie Gluskin_

He hits send and immediately powers his phone completely off, hands shaking.

*

He has an unread message waiting for him when he wakes up. He can see it as soon as he rolls over to check the time. He flattens himself against his bed and stares up at the ceiling, watching the sunlight slowly intensify. Waylon must have either texted him very late or extremely early.

**_Hi_ **

Waylon. He’s been having dreams about Waylon. They’ve gotten more frequent, not less.

Two letters. Eddie picks up his phone and puts it down. 

He reasons:

He doesn’t know what to say –

– it’s better if Waylon doesn’t speak to him –

– what he wants from Waylon is inappropriate –

– Waylon will be disgusted if he finds out that Eddie is _deviant_ –

– not _deviant,_ just himself, just wanting the things his father said he shouldn’t –

– it’s not safe for Waylon.

Eddie rolls out of his bed and stands naked in his room holding his phone. He’s alone. He doesn’t have to be afraid of anything. He’s alone, and he can pick and choose what he lets into his life. Who he lets in. Cat, ball, zebra, honesty. The clock in his mind has hands. They tell him the time but not the right thing to do.

For a wild moment Eddie thinks about just telling Waylon how he feels. That could seal the deal right away, remove all doubt; he’s absolutely certain Waylon wouldn’t want anything to do with him after he found out the things that Eddie still thinks about him.

He picks it up again, puts it down again. He has no right to still want anything from Waylon. Dr. Ullah suggested that maybe familiarity will take the edge off his idealization, but he’s afraid it’ll just get worse.

Eddie runs a shower, scrubs his skin raw with a washcloth and a bar of soap. His scars are starting to fade a little, but he can feel the ridges of them on his torso, a reminder of what he did carved right into him. He shouldn’t even be alive. He thinks maybe the Morphogenic Engine and Project Walrider. He’s pink all over by the time the hot water runs out and he’s feeling less like jumping at shadows. 

He pushes his hair back and looks at himself in the mirror, frowning at the layer of stubble that’s threatening to become growth. He stands over his sink and shaves his face smooth again, then the sides of his head.

The clock reads 8:29 AM. He opens the medicine cabinet and takes three pills.

Yellow, pink, white. He takes them in the same order every time. Olanzapine for his schizophrenia, lisinopril for his blood pressure, and dimenhydrinate for the spells of vertigo.

There are whole years Eddie doesn’t remember at all, he was so loaded up on tranquilizers. His latest round of prescription medication is practically _au naturel_. Things are getting clearer by the day.

Even if he didn’t have it baked into the terms of his first year of parole, he can’t partake in alcohol. His liver, already half-pickled, has suffered significantly from being speared by a dirty piece of rebar, and Eddie’s first few months of hospitalization were marked by regular dialysis even after his surgical wounds had dwindled to the ugly red knot of scarring still partially bisecting his torso at the waist.

Eddie drinks an entire bottle of water to wash his meds down, then places the empty bottle in a blue bin labeled _Recycling,_ and breathes deeply. He thinks about how, if he really wanted to, he could rip off the ankle bracelet and disappear into the night, and balks at the idea.

That the option is there at all is comforting, even if he doesn’t want to mess this up. Nine more months and he’ll be unobserved. He can pack his things and leave the day they take it off.

Breakfast is a bagel, carefully toasted, with a flavor of cream cheese he hasn’t had before. He chews it slowly, eats the whole thing, and decides he likes it as he’s washing crumbs off his saucer. He bags up his garbage and the recycling and takes them down to the dumpsters at the end of the building.

One of his neighbors says hello to him while he’s checking his mail. He smiles at her politely and it’s getting easier to be around other people; he’s not faking it anymore.

Eddie restricts himself to things that have become familiar, because the unread text message in his phone is the most unfamiliar thing he can imagine. He doesn’t know how to tell Waylon he still feels like he’s living two lives – Eddie Gluskin, killer, deviant and Eddie Gluskin, a man who owns a toaster and plants.

A man who’s afraid of what he wants and a man who wants to satisfy his desires so badly he’s leaping into a bad idea feet first.

He picks up his phone and carries it to his bed, sits and stares down at it.

Texting is slow and his hands are so large he has to delete and retype what he wants to say a few times to fix his mistakes. Four words, painfully chosen.

_Good morning_ , _Mr. Park._

He puts it down just as it buzzes. He doesn’t look right away, but makes a circle of his apartment, checking for dead leaves and watering his plants. Fear creeps in that now that he’s replied, maybe Waylon will send him a flood of text messages to remind Eddie of the terrible things he’s done.

He doesn’t expect the reply to read: **_Are you always so formal?_**

It sounds like a joke and criticism rolled into one and Eddie can’t decide which possibility is easier to handle. The phone buzzes in his palm. He turns it several times, weighing his options. He doesn’t know proper protocol or etiquette for this interaction.

There’s no established social guideline on how a perpetrator should speak to a man he nearly mutilated and murdered.

Another message. The alert startles him.

**_Sorry, that probably sounded rude_ **

He imagines himself trying to explain it to Dr. Ullah at his next appointment, how he’s been texting a man he almost killed.

She’d say, _do you feel distressed by that?_

Or _how do you feel about Waylon Park attempting to socialize with you?_

Or maybe she’d just nod slowly and let him spill his guts about the fear and terror that comes with interacting with Waylon Park. The anticipation. Eddie knows he’s been operating with his own mythology about Waylon, a built up fantasy of penance and reckoning, imagining both death and mercy at the hand of his victim.

Blessing and curse. Desire and fear.

Waylon feels like the clock face. Waylon feels like the first time he remembered: cat, ball, zebra, honesty. Waylon feels nothing like Eddie’s father or the Machine turning Eddie inside out.

He pictures Waylon standing in front of the parole board saying, “He deserves a second chance.” If they’d set him free right then and there, he would’ve found Waylon in the courtroom hallways after the hearing and he would’ve – he doesn’t know. What he wants from Waylon remains amorphous and confusing. He still doesn’t know who Waylon is in relation to Eddie.

Waylon Park is just a man and he’s texting Eddie Gluskin who is also just a man, not a monster.

Dr. Ullah would tell him to use his words and talk to Waylon if he wants to know so badly. Especially if Waylon keeps showing up, keeps offering, keeps being kind.

_Eddie  
You have plenty of things to be rude about_

**_Waylon  
Being cruel doesn’t help anything, but I’d like to try to get to know you better, if you’ll let me_ **

_Eddie  
There isn’t much to know. It’s all in the papers and the court records._

**_Waylon  
I don’t think that’s true at all. You seem pretty interesting to me_ **

_Eddie  
I’ve been in one sort of prison or the other since I was 19, Mr. Park. Staring at blank walls doesn’t make an exciting personality._

**_Waylon  
So maybe we could talk about things you want to try_ **

_Eddie  
I don’t want to try anything. I have enough difficulty managing to purchase groceries._

**_Waylon  
I could show you that stuff, too._ **

_Eddie  
Why?_

**_Waylon  
Because I’m afraid to leave my apartment most days and I think it would feel good to help someone_ **

_Eddie  
I’m not a charity case, Mr. Park._

**_Waylon  
Call me Waylon.  
I don’t think you are. Didn’t mean to imply that, sorry. Friends help each other, right?_ **

_Eddie  
I wouldn’t know.  
Why do you want to be friends?_

**_Waylon  
Because you’re a person who went through a really hard time, same as me, and I think we have that in common. It helps, you know. Have you not talked to any of the other people from Mount Massive?_ **

_Eddie  
No, I haven’t tried  
I wasn’t exactly popular with the other patients  
Doesn’t what I did bother you?_

**_Waylon  
Of course it does. How long are you going to fall back on Murkoff fucking around in your head being the thing that you think makes you unlikeable?  
Sorry, that was extremely rude_ **

_Eddie  
It’s okay.  
I just don’t know why you’d want to speak to me._

**_Waylon  
Then why did you text me?_ **

_Eddie  
I don’t know._

That’s not true, he thinks. That’s not true at all. He’s sliding back into the bad habit of lying to keep from talking about things he thinks are hard. He doesn’t want to lie, but the entire truth is too much, too complicated.

Waylon doesn’t know that Eddie’s put him on a pedestal, that Eddie dreams about the soft skin on the inside of Waylon’s thighs, and that those dreams have become something entirely different than the nightmare they lived.

He doesn’t know that it turns Eddie inside out to think about him sometimes, caught between desire, fear, and lingering shame.

It’s not like he hasn’t tested the theory of what he wants. There’s plenty of things on the internet that have confirmed exactly what Eddie likes, exactly what he’s into. They scare him just as much as the thought of feeling those things for a real person.

There’s no one else beating down Eddie’s door to try to be friends, though. Waylon’s there, and Eddie knows he doesn’t have to feel obligated to try to be Waylon’s friend, but it seems like it wouldn’t make sense to just never try.

He has to start making connections eventually. That’s part of his parole plan. Continued socialization. Hobbies. A support network. Treatment. Employment.

Making a friend.

Eddie isn’t sure if the friends they intended him to have ever included Waylon Park, though. But Waylon spoke in his favor at his parole hearing. Waylon, who’s the only person still living that has any right to hate Eddie more than anyone else on the planet, is trying to be his friend.

He wants Eddie to be better. It’s so hard to believe.

_Eddie  
Because you asked me to.  
And to apologize._

**_Waylon  
Well, apology accepted. Again. Now can we be friends?_ **

_Eddie  
I’m not sure how that works.  
What would that entail?_

**_Waylon  
Up to us I guess. There aren’t really any rules.  
We could just try talking about things we like  
That’s usually how most people make friends_ **

_Eddie  
Okay. Where do you want to start?_

**_Waylon  
Do you like to read at all?_ **

_Eddie  
No, but I’m getting better at it._

*

March 02, 2015 - 10:48 AM

**_Waylon  
Did you see the article in the paper today?_ **

_Eddie  
No_

**_Waylon  
Total bullshit. They published an interview with one of the Murkoff CEOs claiming they didn’t know anything about Mount Massive Asylum and the interviewer actually asked if the footage was doctored. Murkoff really thinks they can run a smear campaign and get away with it_ **

_Eddie  
Why do you read anything they have to say?_

**_Waylon  
I don’t know  
They’re not going to do anything but lie  
I know that_ **

March 02, 2015 - 11:14 PM

**_Waylon  
I don’t know why I’m surprised by anything they do_ **

_Eddie  
Would you like to talk about Murkoff?_

**_Waylon  
No. Fuck not really, sorry. It’s late. Did I wake you up?_ **

_Eddie  
I’m still awake._

**_Waylon  
Are you working on something?_ **

_Eddie  
A new suit jacket for myself and a quilt_

**_Waylon  
Do you make all of your clothes?_ **

_Eddie  
Not all of them_

**_Waylon  
Can I see sometime?_ **

March 03, 2015 - 5:11 AM

_Eddie  
Would you like a garment?_

March 03, 2015 - 9:16 AM

**_Waylon  
Wouldn’t you have to measure me in person?_ **

_Eddie  
Yes. If you’re comfortable with that it would be the most accurate._

**_Waylon  
Sorry  
I almost died of shock :)_ **

_Eddie  
I was informed that my attempts to socialize at arm’s length may have been “avoidant” and “in bad faith.” I’m trying to make an effort._

**_Waylon_ ** _  
**Ouch  
Tough crowd  
But good therapist?**_

_Eddie  
I think so.  
Are you free soon?_

**_Waylon  
Any time Thursday or Friday_ **

_*_

Waylon rings his doorbell at 11:02 AM on Friday morning, two minutes after their scheduled meeting time. Eddie’s been standing in his living room for the last ten minutes, trying not to panic.

He’s waiting outside Eddie’s door in a heavy black jacket, faded blue jeans, and a pair of heavy snow boots. He’s wearing a thick wool scarf that's wound around the lower half of his face and a sturdily knit docker hat pulled down over his dark, wind-blown hair.

“Hi,” he says, muffled, cheeks pink from the cold. He looks exactly like what Eddie pictures when he thinks of _normal._ “Can I come in?”

Eddie steps aside to admit him and closes the door against the wall of cold air pressing steadily inward.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Eddie says, giving Waylon space.

He peels off his hat and unwinds his scarf. “It’s so comfortable in here. My apartment is pretty drafty.”

“I sealed the windows,” Eddie says. He feels like he’s hovering. “May I take your coat?”

Waylon’s smile is back, warm and indulgent. “Sure.”

There’s a slightly confused shuffle, where Eddie’s manners and Waylon’s clear unfamiliarity with the formality of it ends with Eddie holding Waylon’s coat and Waylon slightly red in the face.

“I apologize,” Eddie says. “I‘ve never had a guest before.”

“It’s no problem,” Waylon says. He kicks off his shoes without being asked. Good manners in bad weather. “Where do you want me?”

“My things are through here,” Eddie says, gesturing down the hallway leading to his workspace.

Waylon pauses inside the door to the converted bedroom, taking it in. Eddie has several tables and dress forms and neatly stacked racks full of bolts of dozens of fabrics.

The suiting for Waylon is already spread out, ready for the patterns he’ll draw.

“This is for me?” Waylon asks, his hand hovering over the cloth on the table. He looks up, hesitant.

“I thought you might enjoy something nice. Custom pieces are so rare and work of any quality deserves good material.” It’s the least he can do. It’s the least he can offer Waylon. He can put something good together with his hands instead of taking someone apart.

Waylon breathes, “This is way too much, Eddie.”

The suiting is laid out on the worktable, a vast swathe of inky fabric. Eddie thinks simple is best to start with, a classic charcoal grey, heavy linen. Soft to the touch without the odd sheen of polyester.

Eddie clears his throat. “It’s not a bother.”

Waylon is looking at Eddie and not the fabric. “Can I touch it?” He shifts his gaze back to the worktable and bites his lower lip.

“It’s for you,” Eddie says, feeling a tug low in his belly that competes with his anxiety. “Of course you can.”

“What kind of fabric is this?” Waylon asks.

“Linen,” Eddie says, lifting one corner. “Have you ever worn a linen suit?”

“No. I didn’t even wear a suit to my wedding,” Waylon says. “I borrowed my dad’s when I was sixteen for my first job interview and it was a size too big, so I rolled up the sleeves.”

Eddie tries to imagine it and makes a noise of alarm. “That sounds — ”

“It was absolutely hideous-looking. I got the job though, grocery store clerk,” Waylon says. “Minimum wage, ten hours a week after school and on Sundays after church let out. But I always feel like a clown any time I wear a suit.”

“Hopefully you’ll be comfortable in this,” Eddie says. He’s in his element here. He hasn’t been able to work his trade for a long time, but they let him have jobs repairing garments for prisoners and guards in some of the prisons he was in as long as he behaved. It was hard to get someone to do the work that wasn’t just uniforms; a lot of the guys in places like that liked to swallow buttons to get a day trip to medical.

The wardens always liked to look the other way if Eddie recycled cloth destined for a scrap heap to supplement his own clothes, too, as long as he didn’t make it too obvious. Anything to save a few pennies; Eddie’s not exactly a standard order size.

There was never a shortage of practice.

Waylon’s looking at him hesitantly when Eddie turns around with the tape measure.

“Do I need to take this off?” Waylon asks, plucking at his shirt.

Eddie already knows what he looks like under there. There’s nothing good that can come of Waylon stripping down in his work room. “No. Keep it on, please. The jacket and pants will have to fit over it.”

He slips the tape measure around Waylon’s neck without thinking and Waylon sucks in breath so sharp that the air whistles through his teeth.

“Should I stop?” Eddie asks, alarm jolting through him when he remembers the last time he put something around Waylon’s neck.

“No.” Waylon is staring up at him, unblinking. He raises his hand like he might be reaching for Eddie’s arm but then stops and lowers it. “Keep going, it’s fine.”

“I’m out of practice. I should’ve asked permission.” Eddie lets one of the ends of the tape measure drop as soon as he confirms the number. “Back and arms next.”

“Is this typical for a suit fitting?” Waylon asks, turning his back to Eddie. “Do you measure every little thing?”

“Not everything,” Eddie says. “I’ll get close and then fit it down. It’s easier to remove things.”

“I guess that’s true of a lot of stuff,” Waylon says. He tenses a little when Eddie moves the little fabric measure across the span of his shoulder blades, but relaxes when Eddie touches him gently under the elbow to get him to lift his arm in position. “You’re a lot different than I thought you’d be.”

“Can you lift both your arms? I need to get a chest measurement,” Eddie says, trying not to touch Waylon in any one spot for too long. “What did you expect?”

“Don’t know,” Waylon says. “I guess I have some bad biases. You’re – kind.”

“I don’t think so,” Eddie says. No one’s ever described Eddie as kind.

“Making a suit for someone else isn’t kind?” Waylon asks, raising one eyebrow. “It’s a lot of work for a new friend. Or is this some sort of penance?”

Being caught so quickly is a little embarrassing. Eddie tugs the tape measure tighter around Waylon’s chest than he means to. “A little.”

He isn’t that sorry that he’s doing it though. He’d work his hands to the bone to undo what he’s done.

“You don’t have to do this,” Waylon says, frowning.

“You don’t have to be kind to me, either,” Eddie says. He circles around Waylon, brow furrowed. Waylon’s winter sweater is lumpy and badly fitting and Eddie doesn’t want to guess. “We’re both doing things we don’t have to. I’m going to place my hand on your side. Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Waylon says. “What for?”

“Seeing where your natural waist is,” Eddie mutters. “Your clothes aren’t fitted.”

Waylon’s not offended. The corner of his mouth ticks up. “Sorry. I’ll get my tailor on it.”

A knot of tension in Eddie’s chest that he didn’t know was there eases at the joke. “Taking in your pants would be an act of mercy.”

Waylon’s smile widens comically and he crinkles his nose in amusement. “Trying to get your hands on my pants already?”

Eddie makes a strangled noise. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sure it’s a professional interest.” Waylon is laughing at him but Eddie’s not mad. He just doesn’t know how to play along.

“A better fit would be more comfortable,” he mutters, fumbling for a response as he tries to get the next measurement he needs. Waylon’s still grinning, all elbows, turning to look at what Eddie’s doing.

“I have a whole closet of horrible polyblends for you to tear up,” Waylon says, wiggling a little when Eddie, flustered, hooks the measuring tape around Waylon’s hips and gives a little yank. “All right back there?”

“Do you always have to squirm?” Eddie laments a little.

“Yeah, afraid so,” Waylon says. He hasn’t stopped grinning. If anything, it’s getting worse.

Eddie gives the tape a little tug and reaches around Waylon to straighten it out. “Please hold still.”

Waylon’s laugh is a soft puff of air that tickles the side of Eddie’s face and neck. “I didn’t realize when I signed up for this that it involved so much touching.”

That jolts Eddie back to reality. He’s all the way in Waylon’s personal space, so absorbed with his work that he didn’t realize what that might look like.

“I apologize,” Eddie says. “I can guess the rest, but it’ll need more work when I finalize.”

“It wasn’t a complaint,” Waylon says. “You’re really good at this and — is it weird if I say that I like the attention?”

Eddie heats a little all over, not just his cheeks. Warmth floods his chest.

“Last measurement,” Eddie says, hurrying, going to his knees. He’s half tongue tied, heart pounding. “Inseam. Sorry this part is a little — ”

Eddie feels like he’s miscalculated again. Badly.

“Okay, that’s — it’s okay,” Waylon says, not smiling anymore. He’s breathing shallowly, quickly, and he makes a soft sound when Eddie reaches out as politely as he can. “You can. It’s fine.”

Eddie’s face is close to Waylon’s stomach. He could bury himself in that expanse of skin if he wants. His knuckles brush the inside of Waylon’s thigh and it’s like electricity up Eddie’s arm.

He’s aware of everywhere their bodies could touch if he moves just a fraction of an inch.

“Did that hurt badly?” Waylon asks.

“What?” Eddie asks, distracted, looking up at Waylon.

There are two quick, light caresses on the scarred side of Eddie’s face, one on his temple and one on his jaw, quick as a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower. He freezes, hand still outstretched.

“Whatever caused this scarring? I remember it looked pretty bad,” Waylon says. “Or, sorry – you don’t have to talk about it.”

“It’s,” _fine_ , he’s going to say, but he bites off the word, looking up at Waylon, because it isn’t fine. “You can ask. I don’t remember it happening.”

“Can I touch you?” Waylon asks, voice trembling. His gaze is focused, intense. “None of it seems real.”

Eddie knows that feeling so acutely. He’s saying, “Yes,” before he can stop himself. He’s not sure if Waylon asking first is better or worse for his nerves.

He expects the touch on his face, but Waylon’s hand hovers tentatively over Eddie’s head before it settles on Eddie’s hair. Waylon pushes his blunt fingernails across Eddie’s scalp. Eddie shudders and leans into the touch. He feels like a dog groveling at Waylon’s feet and the tape measure slithers out of his fingers.

“I thought you’d died,” Waylon says, stepping closer, thighs against Eddie’s chest. The hem of his sweater brushes against Eddie’s cheek. There’s a gentle suggestion of pressure on the back of Eddie’s head, an invitation to embrace. “I thought I’d killed — ”

“You should stop saying that,” Eddie says. He puts his hand on Waylon’s wrist, closes his eyes, presses his cheek against the firm line of Waylon’s abdomen. “I don’t deserve it.”

It’s not right. He can — he can maybe start to accept what he wants, but who he wants it from — he has no _right_ —

“Eddie,” Waylon murmurs.

Eddie feels like he’s been cracked open and his heart scraped out of his chest. He’d spill his guts to repent for what he did, Waylon the sole survivor of the hate for himself that got turned inside out, he’d let Waylon have the knife.

But Waylon —

Waylon’s hands are moving in his hair, both of them, exploring gingerly. He tilts his head up when Waylon cups Eddie’s face in his palms and he doesn’t realize he’s crying until Waylon rubs away the tears with his thumbs.

The casual, intimate affection shouldn’t feel so much like salvation, like something bigger than himself banishing the shadows of things lingering for decades, but he can’t help being warmed by it. He knows they’ll return, he knows Waylon’s unwarranted forgiveness is only a candle lit against a storm.

Two strangers who know each other more than two men should. He remembers what he said to Waylon in that plastic box months ago. Love thy neighbor. He barely feels like himself, but has never felt more sure that he doesn’t want to be afraid of whatever he finds when the wreckage is cleared away.

“It’ll be okay,” Waylon says gently, frowning down at Eddie as if he’s trying to puzzle out the reason for Eddie’s sadness. “Maybe not right now, but we’re not there anymore. We can choose for ourselves now.”

“I apologize,” Eddie says. “It’s still very difficult for me.”

Waylon offers his hand to help Eddie up, and Eddie takes it, climbing to his feet. He’s struck by how unflappable Waylon is, how opposite he looks to the trembling man in running for his life.

“I cried a lot. So much that I thought there was something wrong with me,” Waylon says. He’s studying Eddie, but there’s no judgment in his voice or expression. “It scared Lisa. It still does, sometimes. They put me in the Engine too. Just for a few hours. Mixed me up pretty badly and it took me a long time to remember what I was like before I went in.”

“I didn’t know,” Eddie says. He knows Waylon was a contract employee. Not another patient. They threw one of their own into the test chamber, just for kicks.

“Alice in Wonderland,” Waylon says. “We used to joke about Alice in Wonderland back in college. The movie, you know? That it was a drug trip. Mount Massive was like that for me, except instead of giant caterpillars and a white rabbit, it was dead bodies and men pulling their own faces off trying to get the devil out of their heads.”

Eddie’s just got one more reason to hate Murkoff. “You never should’ve been there.”

“No one should’ve,” Waylon says, expression hardening. “But I was, so I tried. It’s what anyone would’ve done.”

“Not anyone,” Eddie says grimly. Murkoff was building monsters and murderers out of broken men, most of them already softened up by bad treatment before Mount Massive and all of them afraid. Eddie’s one of them. “Or the place wouldn’t have existed in the first place.”

Waylon laughs, short and sharp, a derisive little bark of sound. “I guess my optimism survived Murkoff, too. Always seeing the best outcome.”

Eddie hums in agreement because he can’t find any meaningful words to carry on the conversation, nerves frayed. He tries to steady himself by noting Waylon’s inseam on the paper with the rest before he forgets. Having a task to focus on makes recovering from his internal disarray easier.

Waylon leans his hip against the worktable and watches Eddie begin his sketches on the cream colored pattern paper. Eddie feels the strange static potential for something — anything — to happen.

“How long is this going to take?” Waylon asks, politely pretending Eddie isn’t a wreck.

Eddie rubs at his eyes. “A few weeks. Four, maybe.”

“Long time for one outfit,” Waylon says. He’s looking at Eddie again like he’s evaluating something. Like maybe he isn’t just talking about the suit. “Good things are worth waiting for, I guess.”

Eddie can’t keep it straight. He’s not all that good at implication or innuendo. Eddie asks, “Would you like to stay while I work?”

“The whole time?” Waylon asks, joking again. This time Eddie’s a little better prepared. 

“Just the afternoon,” he says.

He thinks about volunteering to show Waylon how to work the chalk lines onto the pattern paper, firm them into something tangible, then sketch them again on the suiting.

Then guiding Waylon’s hands on the shears — he stops himself from pursuing that thought down the rabbit hole. That path is full of something he can’t face head on.

“I really would, honestly, but I have the boys this afternoon,” Waylon says. “I should go. Can I come by again sometime soon? This was really nice. Even talking about the bad stuff is easier when you know someone else has been through it.”

Eddie picks up a triangle of chalk and considers the bolt of fabric, wiping his eyes with the back of his free hand. He steadfastly ignores the nervous flop his stomach does. “I’ll need to see you in the unfinished product to do any adjustments.”

“Just let me know,” Waylon says.

“Let me see you out,” Eddie says, remembering his manners. “I can get your coat.”

“Sure,” Waylon says.

They’ve been alone for over an hour and it feels like minutes. Clouds are darkening the sky outside, fat and dark with impending snow. He gestures heavenward. “If you don’t leave now you might be stuck here.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Waylon asks, smiling up at him. Helping Waylon back into his jacket is a far less difficult process than removing it; Waylon slips his arms into place and allows Eddie to smooth it down over his shoulders.

“I wasn’t planning for an overnight guest,” Eddie says. He doesn’t know how to answer Waylon’s question except in the practical sense. “I wasn’t planning for any guest at all.”

Waylon turns to face him and flashes a hint of his straight white teeth, amused by something. After he’s done tying up his boots, his smile disappears beneath his scarf, hat on next. “Maybe we can have a slumber party and talk about our therapists next time.”

“I think they’d tell us to mind our own business and talk about ourselves,” Eddie says. It’s a badly-delivered joke but Waylon gets it, his nose rumpling with a big smile that Eddie can’t see.

Waylon lingers outside Eddie’s doorway, Eddie leaning out, Waylon backing away in mincing, reluctant little steps. “You’re probably right. I’ll see you again soon?”

Eddie should say no. There’s nothing fair about how this feels. He says, “Yes.”

When Waylon has made it safely to his car, Eddie closes the door and goes back to his worktable to consider Waylon’s measurements. He picks up the chalk, turns it over and over, and makes a thoughtful, careful stroke.

His hands are steady. His hands haven’t been steady for a long time.

He has a lot to think about. A lot of work to do.

“Boy,” a voice says behind him, low and threatening. It belongs to a man who’s been dead for over twenty years. It’s not real and now he knows it’s not real. “Boy, you get over here.”

Cancer took his father. That was page six news; no one cared once the spectacle was over. Eddie’s father served some time in a federal facility, but got out on compassionate release to live out the last six months of his life with his liver melting, tottering around a hospice facility while Eddie rotted in a cell for a crime he can barely remember.

Eddie regrets not being able to do it himself, once he was old enough to stand up to his old man. Once he was bigger than his father by a head. He’ll never be meaner, he knows now he’s not like that, but he thinks he could have been cruel just the once.

Fitting to be eaten up from the inside. Eddie knows that’s not how it works, but it’s a comforting fantasy that the vicious old fuck rotted away on his body’s own poison.

Eddie makes another stroke on the paper, the shape of a sleeve revealing itself under his careful work. He has a lot of work to do, both on the clothes and himself.

“I’m not your boy,” he says out loud. “And if you weren’t already dead, old man, I’d kill you all over again.”

*

March 10, 2015 - 8:23 AM

**_Waylon  
Do you like soccer? I know it’s kinda last minute but there’s an indoor boy’s club game this afternoon we’re going to if you’d like to join us_ **

_Eddie  
You don’t have to include me, Waylon._

**_Waylon  
I know. I thought you might like to come. My oldest is playing._ **

_Eddie  
To a game with your wife and children?_

**_Waylon  
Ex-wife, but yeah_ **

_Eddie  
Does she know who I am?_

**_Waylon  
Yeah. We’ve talked about it a lot. We’re on the same page about a lot of things. She’s open to it._ **

_Eddie  
I apologize. I don’t think it would be appropriate at this time._

March 11, 2015 - 9:47 PM

**_Waylon  
I know it was out of left field, but I wish you’d gone. It would have been nice to have someone else to talk to. Lisa’s new husband is nice but we don’t have a lot in common_ **

March 25, 2015 - 1:08 PM

**_Waylon  
Can I come over?_ **

_Eddie  
I don’t think that’s a good idea right now._

**_Waylon  
You’re not avoiding me are you?_ **

_Eddie  
I apologize. I’m having difficulty socializing._

**_Waylon  
Having nightmares?  
I have been, I get it_ **

_Eddie  
Something similar._

**_Waylon  
We don’t have to go anywhere. No pressure. I can bring lunch_ **

_Eddie  
I’m not free until Friday_

**_Waylon  
How’s 11 sound?_ **

March 25, 2015 - 4:33 PM

_Eddie  
Okay._

*

Waylon is sitting on Eddie’s kitchen counter, one leg tucked under him, his hair still damp from the heavy snow, messy, button up shirt undone so Eddie can see the thin white tee beneath. They’re separated by the ruins of takeout boxes: half-eaten mandu, a wholly demolished container of bibimbap, and empty cans of soda. A pile of napkins is encroaching on Eddie’s fruit basket.

Eddie’s lost focus on the food entirely. He’s leaning on his elbow, hand under his chin, watching Waylon.

Beneath the curved shadow where Waylon’s unbuttoned shirt gapes, Eddie can see the dark circle of one of Waylon’s nipples through the fabric.

The effect is – distracting.

“Hey.” Waylon gives a little wave in front of Eddie’s face. “You okay? Where’d you go?”

“Sorry,” Eddie says, pushing away his empty plate. “I was thinking.”

Waylon’s mouth tilts up at the corner. “About what?”

He’s a bad liar, so he doesn’t try. “You.”

Waylon takes a drink and regards him warmly. He’s less reserved here, among the mess in Eddie’s kitchen, talking about himself. Eddie likes it. He likes Waylon, who seems genuinely kind and full of a bright kind of optimism that Eddie doesn’t possess. “Should I be flattered or worried?”

“I’m not sure,” Eddie says.

Waylon’s brows shoot towards his hairline. “Is that a joke?”

“I thought so,” Eddie says. “A bad one, maybe.”

“I’ll give you credit for the effort,” Waylon says. He’s still staring at Eddie, that soft expression on his face. “You’re a lot different than I imagined.”

“So are you,” Eddie says. Odd how familiar things seem, how what happened has started to fade like a bad dream, like they were other people playacting in a terrible nightmare not of their own making. “Is that good?”

“I like it,” Waylon says. “The circumstances are pretty shitty, but I – I like this.”

There’s something valuable about everything Eddie’s ashamed of being laid bare so he doesn’t have to do it himself. Of having the person who saw all that choose him, show him kindness. “Do you – still think of me like – ”

“Yeah,” Waylon says. He reaches out and touches the side of Eddie’s face, the scars. “Can I tell you something that might be a little fucked up?”

“Of course,” Eddie says. He doesn’t know how anything could be more fucked up than what he’s already done, what they’ve already been through. Waylon’s touch on his skin feels like a fist around his heart, squeezing. “Anything.”

“I think about it sometimes,” Waylon says. “About – maybe if I’d gone along with it. Let you – ”

It’s _perverse_ the way that Eddie’s heart speeds. His shock stops his tongue like a lead weight in his mouth. He wants to go to his knees, to beg forgiveness. But that darkness is in him, too. That endless chain of _what_ _if_ s. Most lead to horrible, bleak, lonely places, but _some_ —

If he’d been stronger, tuned the Engine out. If he’d protected Waylon instead of hunting him. If Waylon had come to him under the cover of darkness, soft and willing, a skirt hiked up over his knees and showed Eddie –

It wouldn’t have worked.

“Say something,” Waylon says, bending his head to peer at Eddie.

“It’s very difficult sometimes,” Eddie says carefully, not wanting to get the words wrong when he’s saying something so important, “to tell the difference between what I want and what they put in my head. But I – like men. That’s clear. I wasn’t myself.”

He can picture a clock face in his head, the hands pointing at the time. He can recite words hours after he’s been asked to remember them. His hands only shake a little when he glides shears through the slick, dark fabric on his worktable. He doesn’t see bodies when he picks up his needle.

Treatment is working. Eddie is getting better. Eddie’s helping himself.

He still feels – overwhelming desire for Waylon Park.

He doesn’t always know if that’s something honest or the roots growing from a seed planted by violence and denial, but he’s getting better at examining it.

Waylon seems to be thinking about what he’s about to say. “I did wonder if that was on the table after what happened.”

“I don’t want to make you – ” _a wife_ , _a woman_ , he can’t say the words, the implication is so ugly, he hates that part of himself, “into anything else. That’s not me.”

Now Waylon appears to be struggling for words. He opens and closes his hands, leaning towards Eddie like he’s trying to divulge a secret. “Would you have — let me — ”

“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Eddie says. “I’m sorry. You can just ask.”

Waylon closes his eyes. Maybe it’s easier to imagine what he wants to say that way, or maybe he’s hiding his shame. “I think about how big you are, you holding me down, letting you have me so I — if I could make you feel good, you wouldn’t have hurt me.”

“It’s not uncommon,” Eddie says roughly, “to fantasize about being perfect, behaving the way someone wants so they’re — kinder. Better. Want you the way you are.”

He’s been doing it for years.

“That wouldn’t have worked, would it?” Waylon asks. 

“It never works.” Eddie doesn’t know what answer he wants, but he looks at Waylon’s mouth, flattened into an unhappy line, and can’t lie. “Not then, not for you or me. I was — what my father wanted me to be.”

“I remember I had a literature class where they said that — ‘Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.’” Waylon slides off the counter, leaning against it, close to Eddie. “If that’s true, it sounds like your father was the devil.”

“He was, or he had the devil in him,” Eddie says.

A devil with black boots and a coal miner’s grubby, square hands. A big man, full to the top with violence. Eddie’s spent years hating him, trying to be like him without ever wanting to.

He wants to be different now. He’s trying.

Eddie pictures the clock in his head. It’s Waylon instead, scared and stripped down to nothing, hurting. Eddie made that hurt worse, let his father’s evil work through him.

His father, the Engine, his own self-hatred. The line is so old it blurs. He can’t see where one begins and the other ends.

“I’m sorry,” Waylon says. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No,” Eddie says. “Thank you for telling me. I can be careful about what I say.”

He doesn’t mean it to sound quite like it does, his voice so low and tender. Eddie feels exposed. He flinches back.

Waylon must misunderstand why. He puts his hand on Eddie’s shoulder and the quick movement startles Eddie. His fingers are around Waylon’s wrist before he can stop himself, not hard, but secure. He could bring Waylon to his knees with a twist of his arm.

Heat fills him when he realizes what it means when he sees Waylon’s pupils dilate, his jaw slacken, red tongue pressed hard behind his white teeth, sucking in a breath so sharp it whistles.

Eddie’s not a genius. But he’s not a stupid man.

Waylon wants him. _Now_ , not then, not as some – nightmare survival fantasy.

“I apologize,” Eddie murmurs. He doesn’t know what to do with this information, that his vague, intense yearning is returned. It’s like a blow.

They’re strangers. Except maybe not so much any more. Texting on and off for a few months is a poor substitute for real quality time, but when Eddie’s had years of being mostly alone in a concrete box behind bars, it’s more of a friendship he thought he’d ever have with someone.

When he saw Waylon in the control booth, he recognized something. Saw it again, completely out of his own mind. Saw it in that plastic bubble, the courtroom and in the badly lit hallway outside of it, in his workroom, and now in his kitchen.

“Don’t be sorry,” Waylon says, making no effort to remove his hand. His breathing is quick and shallow. He doesn’t seem afraid. “I shouldn’t have surprised you.”

“Waylon,” Eddie murmurs.

He stands, rising from his bar stool, and Waylon follows him with his gaze, red-cheeked and mouth open. Eddie rakes his gaze down Waylon’s body, then back up, taking in the tension in Waylon’s muscles, and Waylon tilts his face up.

Waylon moves first: that feels important. Vital.

It’s the only reason Eddie lets it happen.

They stumble against each other, headlong, reckless and awful. Eddie gets a hand under Waylon’s ass, lifts him onto the counter to push between his legs. Waylon surrenders space, yanks Eddie forward by his shirt.

Everything happens all at once, their mouths a wet and angry clash of teeth and tongue until Waylon brackets Eddie’s face with his hands, tilting his jaw, opening for Eddie so the kiss dissolves into a sweet, melting heat.

Eddie’s never kissed another man before. He’s never kissed _anyone_ like _this_.

He can feel Waylon’s erection pressed flat against his abdomen. Waylon’s hands migrate up the shaved sides of Eddie’s head and grip at his hair, a hard pull that makes him groan through his teeth.

Waylon backs away, breathing hard, mouth damp. Eddie can still taste him. Wants to taste him again.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, pulls Eddie against him.

Eddie turns his face to the side and Waylon’s mouth lands beneath his ear, teeth on his neck over Eddie’s pulse, and he makes a ruined sound because it feels so good. “Waylon.”

“I swear to god,” Waylon groans. He pushes his face against Eddie’s shoulder. “I don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about you.”

He doesn’t know if it’s Waylon tugging at his clothes or the faint scrape of stubble against Eddie’s skin that sets every nerve jangling in the wrong way. Eddie sucks in a breath hard and tries to steady himself but he feels an old fear swelling up beneath how much he wants Waylon.

Eddie plants his hands on the counter on either side of Waylon, turning his face into Waylon’s hair. “We shouldn’t.”

“But you want to,” Waylon says. It’s not a question.

“Yeah,” Eddie admits. No use lying now. No use hiding it. “But we shouldn’t. Don’t – I don’t think I can. Right now.”

“Okay,” Waylon says. “I should — I should leave.”

“You don’t have to,” Eddie says, panic swelling in his chest. For a second he thinks he’s fucked this up — this friendship —

“If you don’t want to do this right now I should go,” Waylon says. He presses himself against Eddie and Eddie lets him. “I’ve been imagining it since the last time I was here. What I could say or do to get what I want. And I don’t — ”

_Want to do that._

_Want to be like that._

_Pressure you._

Whatever comes after that is lost when Waylon presses against him, Waylon’s arms around him, but Eddie understands it for once, even as bad as he is at reading signals. Eddie embraces Waylon, engulfs him, holds him like a drowning man clinging to a rock.

Waylon wants him. Waylon wants him and Eddie _can’t_ , it’s too much, too fast. He knows it’s too fast. They’re strangers. He shouldn’t want the things he wants.

No — that’s not it —

He shouldn’t feel like what he wants is wrong. The fear isn’t subsiding.

“Let me walk you out,” Eddie says, soft. He feels tender, macerated, threadbare. He’s a pattern of a man, cut by too many hands, none of them his own. “Let me.”

“Whatever you want.” He knows Waylon doesn’t mean helping Waylon with his coat. He shudders, pressing closer. He wants more. Dreads more. “Come on.”

Eddie releases him. “I’ll get your things.”

He does. Waylon lets Eddie button him into his coat even though Eddie, red-faced and clumsy, fumbles with the tiny holes. Waylon bears it patiently, allows Eddie to help with his scarf, allows it to happen all out of order.

Waylon covers Eddie’s hands with his. “Are you okay? Do you want me to call someone before I go?”

“It’s okay,” he says. He’s not certain. Odds are fifty-fifty. “I’ll be fine.”

He doesn’t know if his dead father will be waiting for him when Waylon leaves. He’s transgressed. He wants things his father told him he shouldn’t want, craves them down to his marrow.

As afraid of what he wants as he is, he doesn’t want Waylon to go. Stranger or not, inappropriate or not, he wants to carry Waylon back to his bed and unwrap him, wants to put his mouth everywhere.

He doesn’t lift his arms from his sides when Waylon kisses him for the second time, knows if he touches Waylon again, he won’t let Waylon leave, but he opens for it, presses his tongue against Waylon’s. Waylon tastes good, feels good, so Eddie lets him in.

Maybe it can be that simple.

“I want to see you again,” Waylon says. “When you’re ready.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. Yes, he thinks. _Now,_ he wants to say, but that’s a lie too. He’s not ready. He wants to be.

He wants: cat, ball, zebra, honesty.

Honesty. When he’s ready.

Waylon stops in the open door, hand on the frame. He looks serious again. Eddie waits for him to speak.

“I have a hard time,” Waylon says, “believing anyone could forgive me for what I did. I pulled the trigger on torturing a man — torturing _you_. I did it with a gun to my head, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was awake for it. They leveled you, Eddie. I think if we want a couple things we think we shouldn’t, that’s a small price to pay for surviving.”

Eddie thinks about that for a long time, even after Waylon’s car is out of sight.

*

April 02, 2015 - 8:55 AM

**_Waylon  
I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable._ **

_Eddie  
People who are always comfortable don’t grow_

**_Waylon  
_** **_That sounds like therapy talk_**

_Eddie  
It sounds true.  
How can you want this? You barely know me._

**_Waylon  
Getting to know you better every day if you let me.  
Do you want me to stop wanting it?_ **

_Eddie  
No_

April 03, 2015 - 1:03 AM

**_Waylon  
I’ve been thinking about you_ **

_Eddie  
Why?_

**_Waylon  
I just am_ **

April 03, 2015 - 8:16 PM

**_Waylon  
Do you think it’s too weird?_ **

_Eddie  
You’ll have to be more specific._

**_Waylon  
That we’re talking, of all the people that got out? Being friends?  
Is that why it’s so difficult?  
If we were strangers that met any other way, this wouldn’t be so hard, would it?_ **

_Eddie  
Are we friends?_

April 04, 2015 - 7:59 PM

**_Waylon  
Of course we’re friends  
That’s a weird question  
Why would you ask that?_ **

_Eddie  
You asked if you thought us being friends was weird._

**_Waylon  
Isn’t it though?  
Out of all the people, hell of a coincidence, right?  
My therapist knows, does yours?_ **

_Eddie  
Yes, of course._

**_Waylon  
What does she think?_ **

_Eddie  
What she thinks doesn’t matter. How I feel about this isn’t her decision._

**_Waylon  
That sounds like something a therapist would say_ **

_Eddie  
It’s also the truth.  
I’m trying to figure a few things out._

**_Waylon  
Does this help?_ **

_Eddie  
Does what help?_

**_Waylon  
Does talking to me help you decide?_ **

_Eddie  
Yes._

April 05, 2015 - 5:02 PM

**_Waylon  
Do you want to meet for coffee tomorrow?_ **

_Eddie  
I apologize, I have several appointments._

**_Waylon  
No big deal :) Some other time?_ **

_Eddie  
Yeah._

April 08, 2015 - 7:03 AM

**_Waylon  
How about today? Coffee? I’ve been thinking about you._ **

_Eddie  
I’m not free today.  
Why have you been thinking about me?_

**_Waylon  
Difficult not to_ **

_Eddie  
Why?_

**_Waylon  
You really don’t know?_ **

_Eddie  
I have an idea, but I’d prefer not to misunderstand._

April 08, 2015 - 7:28 AM

**_Waylon  
Sorry, I just got a call. They found Miles Upshur. He’s still alive but he’s not doing too hot._ **

_Eddie  
I thought they found his corpse in the fire? That was over a year ago_

**_Waylon  
They couldn’t get a positive DNA match off the body they recovered. Whoever it really was had Upshur’s melted press credentials but that’s all they had to go on_ **

_Eddie  
What does that mean for the case?_

**_Waylon  
I don’t know, but it’s potentially huge. If Upshur remembers what happened to him, this could be what they need to convict in the criminal case against them. They have him under armed guard._ **

_Eddie  
I hope he recovers._

**_Waylon  
I don’t know if he will after what happened. He’s in the ICU right now, but I really hope so too_ **

April 12, 2015 - 7:15 AM

**_Waylon  
Sorry I haven’t been in touch. They needed me to come in for some paperwork and both of the boys are sick, so I have to watch them while Lisa and her husband are at work. It’s been really hectic_ **

_Eddie  
You aren’t obligated to keep me informed. Is there good news about Upshur?_

**_Waylon  
Yeah, he’s awake and talking. Apparently he’s mad as hell. We might actually get these motherfuckers on criminal charges. Rain check on the coffee?_ **

_Eddie  
Of course **.**_

April 14, 2015 - 6:48 AM

**_Waylon  
It’s snowing!_ **

April 14, 2015 - 8:02 AM

**_Waylon_**  
**_Eddie, wake up!_**

_Eddie_  
_I’m awake. I was shoveling my doorstep._

**_Waylon_**  
**_Do you not like snow?_**

_Eddie_  
_It’s beautiful, but I don’t like being cold._

**_Waylon_**  
**_Does anyone?_**

_Eddie_  
_I’d prefer to stay in bed_

**_Waylon_**  
**_I bet you would_**

_Eddie_  
_Who are you betting against?_

**_Waylon_**  
**_Never mind, bad joke. Do you have any plans today?_**

_Eddie_  
_I’m working on a new garment._

**_Waylon_**  
**_Who’s it for?_**

_Eddie_  
_No one in particular_

**_Waylon_**  
**_Hmm, okay. Will you send me a picture?_**

_Eddie_  
_When it’s finished._

**_Waylon_ **  
**_Tough customer, but I’ll hold you to it  
Can I see you again soon?_ **

_Eddie  
Maybe._

April 15, 2015 - 3:02 AM

**_Waylon  
I’ve been thinking about you putting your hands on me  
I can’t stop thinking about it_ **

_Eddie  
I’ve been thinking about it too_

**_Waylon  
Is this hard because I’m a man or because of what we went through?_ **

_Eddie_  
_Both_  
_But it’s getting easier_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look this is just almost all back-to-back sex beyond this point okay

' _It is incredible how essential to me you have become._ '  
\- Vita Sackville-West

*

 ** _Waylon  
I know you wanted some space to figure some things out  
_ ** **_But_ **_**how do you feel about this?**_

The picture Waylon sends him is —

Eddie sits down on the edge of his bed, blood rushing in his ears. The cropped preview is suggestive enough, but he nearly drops his phone when he taps on the image.

Waylon’s put some effort into the composition. He’s kneeling on his bed in a pair of sweatpants, which are slung low enough that Eddie can nearly see where his dark hair starts to gather at the root of his cock.

His torso is bare. The photo is angled so that his face is obscured, but he’s visible from the mouth down, and there’s nothing at all covering him from top to hip.

The way that makes Eddie want to push Waylon’s pants down, see what he’s hiding —

_Eddie  
I think this is inappropriate_

**_Waylon  
Isn’t that the point?_ **

_Eddie  
What do you want from this?  
From me?_

**_Waylon  
Don’t know. I’m trying something new here_ ** _  
Do you want me to stop?_

_Eddie  
No_

**_Waylon  
Do you want to talk about it first?_ **

_Eddie  
I don’t know how_

**_Waylon  
If you like this, I can send more  
Or I can tell you what I’ve been thinking about_ **

Eddie lowers himself back onto his bed, reclining with the phone above his face. His breathing sounds loud in the dark room, even to him. He’s been trying not to think about this, trying not to want it. He can still remember the way Waylon’s mouth felt under his, his skin, the press of his cock through his jeans.

Words seem safer. The distance seems safer. He can delete words, erase them, ignore them. If he sees Waylon — if he sees _more_ , he knows he won’t forget it as easily. He knows he’ll want more. He already wants more. He’s been wanting more since he met Waylon.

_Eddie  
You can tell me.  
Only if you want to._

**_Waylon  
Okay  
I’ve been thinking about the way you kissed me, like you didn’t want to stop  
I’ve been thinking about how big your hands are  
And how they’d feel holding me down_ **

_Eddie  
Do you want me to hold you down?_

**_Waylon  
I’ve thought about it yeah. Having you hold me down and put your mouth on me_ **

_Eddie  
Where?_

**_Waylon  
On my ass, if you want to. Have you ever done that?_ **

A jolt goes through Eddie as a memory of Waylon naked and grubby swims up from somewhere unpleasant.

It’s banished just as quickly, though. He gets another picture from Waylon and his mouth goes dry while his cock twitches.

Waylon is face down on his bed, ass tilted at an enticing angle. His pants have been pushed down to just below the crease of muscle where his thighs join his legs and he’s spreading himself open with one hand. Eddie can’t see anything but a suggestion of his balls, but all Eddie’s focus is on that tight entrance.

It leaves nothing about what he’s suggesting to imagination.

It should be — _disgusting_.

It isn’t. That goes through him like a revelation. He’d expected that rising panic, but all he feels is intense desire.

Eddie is so suddenly and painfully hard that he has to scrabble for the fly of his pants and yank it open, easing himself out with an embarrassed groan.

There’s no one there to see him, he reminds himself. No one to judge. He‘s just a little turned around with Waylon, and that’s understandable.

He strokes himself to the picture, his cock leaking messily onto his bare belly.

**_Waylon  
Like what you see?_ **

_Eddie  
Yes._

**_Waylon  
I hoped you would_ **

_Eddie  
I’ve never done that._

**_Waylon  
Put your mouth there?_ **

_Eddie  
Any of it_

Eddie’s never had time. He got a few half-finished attempts at a blowjob when he was working as a prep cook in the Leadville nursing home kitchen, but the one nice girl who wanted to fool around with him got spooked by how he didn’t like to be touched.

He didn’t like a lot of things for a long time after what happened.

_Eddie  
A few blowjobs, touched a girl_

He thinks he’d be okay with being touched now if the opportunity arises. He thinks of Waylon, his slim hips fitted into Eddie’s lap, his slender, strong arms draped around Eddie’s neck, and he just feels good, hot, aroused.

**_Waylon  
That’s okay. It’s easy  
I could blow you while you played with my ass_ **

_Eddie  
Does it feel good?_

**_Waylon  
Amazing  
Can I see you?_ **

_Eddie  
Do you want a picture?_

**_Waylon_ **   
**_Are you somewhere you can take one?_ **   
**_Is that too far?_ **

For a second he thinks about not even responding, fear beating like birds’ wings in the space between his ribs. 

But he —

He wants Waylon to want him in the same breath that he’s terrified Waylon won’t like what he sees.

Eddie shifts his mass and pulls his shirt off. He looks at the picture that Waylon sent him, chin to hip.

He grips his cock in his hand and squeezes the base, lip between his lower teeth, eyes closed. Just for good measure, he takes a few and flips back and forth between them, hesitating.

It takes him a few minutes to send the picture.

The phone rings immediately.

He picks up on the third ring. “Hello?” he asks, perplexed.

“I’ve never been so pissed to not be home right now,” Waylon says over the line, his voice a low croak. “Is it legal for you to carry that thing around?”

“What?” Eddie frowns. “Where are you?”

“Hotel. I’m at a state conference for the boys,” Waylon says. “The other parents are all downstairs at dinner. Have the room to myself.”

“When will you be back?” Eddie asks, settling back on his pillows. He hasn’t taken his hand off his cock, stroking upwards lazily, little zings of pleasure sparking through him.

“Not until next week,” Waylon says. There’s noise on the other end of the line, clothes rustling. “Fuck, you’re big.”

“Is that good?” Eddie asks.

“I’m going to be finger fucking myself in the shower as often as I can for the next seventy-two hours just thinking about you putting that monster inside me,” Waylon says, his breathing stuttering and the syllables bitten off between gasps. He’s touching himself, Eddie realizes. Touching himself to _Eddie_. “Would you like that?”

It’s hard for him to say it out loud. The messages were safer. Even the pictures were safer than this, even knowing Waylon’s got his hand on his cock. This is viciously good. “Waylon — ”

“Are you going to say you don’t want to?” Waylon asks, mouth close to the receiver. “After what you just sent me?”

“No,” Eddie breathes. He tries to imagine it but it’s too much all at once. “Is that what you really want?”

“Right now I just want you to touch yourself,” Waylon murmurs. Eddie thinks about Waylon’s mouth pressed right into the shell of Eddie’s ear, voice soft and breath hot. “Make yourself feel good, let me listen.”

“This is embarrassing.” He’s obeying anyways. His hand moves slowly, up and down, and he imagines it’s Waylon.

“There’s no one else,” Waylon says. “Just me, just you. This is all us. Doesn’t that feel good?”

“Yeah,” Eddie mutters, squeezing his cockhead. He’s never felt like this before, weighed down and floating all at once. Jerking off furtively in the shower has nothing on this. “Fuck, Waylon.”

“That’s right,” Waylon says. “I bet you’d go off already if I put my mouth on that nice big cock of yours right now, wouldn’t you?”

“Waylon, please,” Eddie says. His balls tighten, abdomen flexing, and he braces one foot on the bed and thrusts upwards with short, quick strokes, driving his cock through the rough circle of his precome-slicked fingers. “Feels good.”

“I wish I could be there right now. I’d go down on you until you had to pull me off,” Waylon says. “I’d love to suck that big cock and let you fuck my mouth until you unloaded in me.”

Eddie says it before he thinks better of it, “Such a p-pretty little mouth,” and bites back a cry of alarm. He wants to bury himself in the warm heat of Waylon’s body, to let Waylon surround him.

Waylon draws a sharp breath and is silent for a moment before he asks, “Yeah? You want to fuck my mouth? How about my pretty little cunt?”

Eddie only feels the sound he makes, raw and nearly pained, because he can’t hear it over the blood rushing in his ears. He orgasms so hard that things fuzz out around the edges, his breath seizing in his lungs, spine bowing as he comes through his fingers and across his chest.

There’s an odd sound and Eddie realizes it’s Waylon gasping, then laughing breathlessly into the phone, “That sounded really good.”

Eddie’s too dazed to feel humiliated by the mess he’s just made. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I like that,” Waylon says, groaning the words. “It felt good for me, too.”

“You can’t be serious,” Eddie says, hunting for a towel or anything other than the blankets he has to sleep on to clean himself up with. He gives up after a second and rolls to the side of the bed, waiting for his legs to quit shaking. “No one can like something that vulgar.”

“I’ve heard of stranger things,” Waylon says and his voice hasn’t lost that bright amusement. He sounds more relaxed, less raspy and intense. “Maybe I _want_ to put on a pair of cute little panties and let you suck me off through them.”

Eddie makes a pained sound and shivers bodily. “You’re not – that’s not disgusting?”

Waylon makes a thoughtful noise. “Maybe I would’ve had a problem with it a year ago, but I’d like to think I’m pretty open-minded. The more I think about it, you know.”

“Even though – ” Eddie starts and then shuts his jaw with an audible click. He can’t talk about that yet.

Waylon’s silence stretches, but it doesn’t feel painful or awkward. “Would _you_ think that’s disgusting if I said yes?”

“No,” Eddie says. “No, I just don’t know why you’d like it after what I did.”

“Maybe I like it because of what you did,” Waylon says. “Maybe I like it because now I’m in control now and I can decide to feel good about something that hurt both of us when we couldn’t pick it.”

People can’t always choose, Eddie has to remind himself. _He_ didn’t get to choose. The dark and thorny things that live inside him, this thing that made him feel _deviant_ for decades and is now just starting to feel like waking up.

Deviant. No one decent calls it that anymore. A man wanting men.

A man loving another man like he was told a man should only ever love his wife.

Waylon is quiet while Eddie digests.

“Do you mean that?” Eddie asks, squeezing his eyes closed so hard spots dance behind his eyelids. “Do you mean it – because – ”

“I want to see you,” Waylon says. “I’m back in town in three days, but I have to take the boys for the weekend and I have a job interview. Five days. I want to see you, then I can show you. We can figure it out. Is that okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie says. He sits down on the edge of his bed, turns off the lamp, and lets the cool dark settle around him. Then, “Don’t you have to go to dinner?”

“I’ll get room service later. The least Murkoff’s money could do is spoil me a little,” Waylon says. He stretches audibly, grunting. Eddie closes his eyes and imagines Waylon on his hotel bed, naked and sated.

“Tell me about what you’re doing,” Eddie says.

Somewhere between groaning at one of Waylon’s ridiculous jokes and a thorough description of the science project one of his sons submitted at their last school fair, Eddie falls asleep.

*

Eddie doesn’t see Waylon for five gratingly difficult days. A few hours into pinning fabric into place on Monday and he gives in to the compulsion to check his phone for the hundredth time.

There’s a knock at his door, five minutes early. Eddie’s palms are damp.

“They called me back this morning. I already got the job,” Waylon announces as soon as Eddie opens the door. “I know you don’t drink, but do you mind if I have a beer to celebrate?”

Bemused, Eddie steps aside to let Waylon in. “Be my guest.”

“I really thought I wasn’t going to get it,” Waylon says, setting his six pack on the counter. He fishes in Eddie’s drawer for a bottle opener like he lives there. “I almost lost my lunch in the bathroom and I’ve spent the last couple days in a nervous sweat.”

He looks up and catches Eddie staring.

“I’m really glad,” Eddie says.

Waylon slowly sets the bottle down unopened, forgotten. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He’s not sure how Waylon can stand there like that, after what they’ve done. After that phone call and those pictures. Eddie clears his throat. “I have a surprise for you.”

No going back now.

Eddie flips on the workroom light and Waylon follows him without being prompted. There are two dresses and two button up shirts finished on dress forms. The shirts are exactly Waylon’s size: one of undyed linen, lightweight and lovely, with copper buttons, the other a cream cotton with stately white buttons, understated but stylish.

Waylon stops in his tracks and draws in a deep breath. He turns in a slow circle, taking in the unfinished work pinned to dress forms and the handful of completed pieces adorning the mannequins on the far side of the workspace.

“I made these all for you,” Eddie says, directing Waylon towards two garments on suit hangers. “If you don’t like them, I can try something different, but the suit is read to be finished.”

Waylon is looking at Eddie, not at the clothes. “Eddie, you didn’t have to. This is too much.”

“I wanted to,” Eddie says. He knows he’s red in the face. He hasn’t given someone a gift since he was a child.

“You really made all this by hand? These are so beautiful, Eddie,” Waylon says. He looks at the shirts, but then pauses, lifting the hem of one of the finished dresses to inspect Eddie’s handiwork. He looks up from beneath his lashes and Eddie’s heart stumbles in his chest. “Can I try this on, too?”

Eddie makes an involuntary noise of alarm, reaching for Waylon’s wrist. “Don’t. It’s not funny.”

“I’m serious,” Waylon says, evading Eddie’s half-hearted attempt to stop him. “What good is it making all this beautiful stuff if you never get to see how it looks on a real person?”

“That would be wrong,” Eddie says and turns his face away, embarrassed by how much he wants to see it, to let Waylon slip into the fanciful, self-indulgent confection of a dress he’s created.

“No one has to know,” Waylon says, and there’s something gentle about his tone. Eddie starts when Waylon lays a hand on his arm, suddenly close, the distance between them intimate and secret instead of polite and friendly just like that unexpected moment in the kitchen some weeks ago. “Our secret. Promise.”

Eddie’s mouth goes dry. He lies, “It won’t fit you.”

Waylon’s smile widens. “I think I can manage it. Will you help me take it off the mannequin so I don’t rip it?”

“Let me,” Eddie says. His face feels like it’s on fire as he pushes past Waylon and carefully lifts the dress off the display. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

“If you turn around, that’s fine,” Waylon says, accepting the fabric that Eddie drapes over his outstretched arms. He holds it up and scrutinizes the beadwork on the bustier, giving an impressed whistle before reaching for the fly of his jeans. “I might need a hand with the back.”

Eddie turns around immediately, just in time to hear the sound of Waylon’s clothes hitting the floor. He closes his eyes, fists balled at his sides, and tries not to imagine Waylon’s naked body disappearing beneath a few thin layers of cloth.

The rustle of fabric ceases after a moment and Eddie, every muscle taut with anticipation, asks, “Is everything acceptable?”

Waylon makes an amused sound. “I can’t get it the rest of the way on.”

“I told you it wouldn’t fit,” Eddie says, cheeks burning. He makes a move to help Waylon back out of the garment but when he finally looks he finds Waylon is in no trouble at all.

“It’ll fit. Help me do it up?” Waylon asks, eyes averted, holding the fabric modestly over his chest with one hand. When he turns, Eddie can see the soft swell of his ass peeking through the waistline where the eyelets begin.

 _God_ , he thinks, his stomach plummeting like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff and thinking about jumping. He might as well be, the way his legs carry him forward. _God_.

Eddie takes the laces in hand and ties them in a neat bow between the wings of Waylon’s shoulder blades. Waylon is watching Eddie in the fitting mirror. Eddie can feel the dangerous weight of his gaze, feel the hitch and stumble in Waylon’s breath when Eddie spreads his hands across the cinched span of Waylon’s narrow waist to adjust the seams.

It fits perfectly. Eddie’s mouth goes dry. He spent weeks fixing each one of the tiny pearls to the cream fabric by hand and now all he wants to do is rip it off of Waylon.

“Do you think I’d make a pretty wife, Eddie?” Waylon says, voice a husky rasp, barely a whisper.

He likes the way that makes him feel.

Eddie presses his face against Waylon’s bare shoulder, unable to stifle his groan. He rubs himself against Waylon, the rasp of his own stubble against Waylon’s soft skin like a live electrical wire being held to his spine. “Are you joking?”

“Not joking. Tell me, Eddie,” Waylon says. He pushes his hips back against Eddie’s groin, arching into the touch as Eddie’s hands clutch at his waist then move lower down his belly, seeking the soft vee of his legs. Waylon spreads for him and Eddie halts the progress of his hand just before he ruins the tenuous illusion created by the cream silk, bunched lace, and the little game they’re playing. “I want to hear it.”

“You’re such a good girl,” Eddie says, then clenches his jaw hard enough that he feels like he’s going to break it. “This is – you _can’t_ want this. Not this.”

He meets Waylon’s eyes in the mirror. Waylon looks hungry, that same look he gave Eddie before he left more than a month ago, his mouth hanging open and his hair tousled. “I’ve been thinking about it since you sent me that picture of yourself.”

Eddie is going to bite through his lip trying to resist Waylon. His growing erection is already wedged precariously into the curve of Waylon’s ass. If Waylon moves –

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Eddie protests, but he desperately wants to. He wants to, he wants to, he wants to – wants to push Waylon down and ravish him, even though he knows Waylon has a cock under there too, not just a sweet little place for Eddie to fuck, and that –

God, that makes him even harder. He wants Waylon’s cock, too. Every soft, slick part of him.

“I don’t care. Take me to bed,” Waylon says, his voice starting out soft with an affectation of femininity, then sliding down into a register that makes Eddie’s cock twitch. “All I can think about is having a wedding night with you.”

Eddie slides a hand back up Waylon’s belly, across the flat, hard plane of his chest and up the vulnerable column of his throat. He pushes a finger against Waylon’s mouth and Waylon makes a low, desperate sound and takes him in, sucking eagerly.

His self-control is already tenuous where Waylon is concerned. That sound is — it ignites him. Eddie sweeps Waylon off his feet and over his shoulder before Waylon can object to being picked up and makes a beeline to his bed, pushing the door to the bedroom open so hard it bangs against the wall. 

Eddie dumps him onto the mattress, but Waylon recovers quickly, rolling into a crouch with his skirts gathered between his knees. He looks wild. Beautiful and defiant. Eddie’s on fire for him.

“Are you going to make me your good little wife, Eddie?” Waylon asks, breathy. “Take your belt to me. I’ve been so bad, after all.”

“Fuck,” Eddie says, fumbling with his belt buckle. He pulls it from his slacks with a hiss of leather on fabric and folds it in half. He doesn’t want to hurt Waylon, but if Waylon asks, if Waylon _tells_ him to, he’d pull the moon right out of the sky right now. “Is this what you really want? Need you to _say_ it — ”

Waylon makes a wounded noise, eyes fixed on the belt, on the threat of being punished. “Yes, _please_.” He’s scrambling, lifting his skirts, and Eddie is dizzy with how rounded and soft his ass looks when he exposes himself. Presents himself. “Make me your good girl. Remind me who I belong to.”

Eddie’s on his knees on the bed before he can even think about changing his mind, brandishing his belt. The first crack of leather against bare flesh is harder than he means it to be, but Waylon hisses encouragement, and Eddie bends to mouth at the red welt he leaves. “Are you going to be a sweet girl for me from now on, darling?”

Waylon jerks his head to the side, peering at Eddie wild-eyed over his shoulder, and Eddie can see his cock twitch where it hangs, hard and leaking, between his legs. Eddie’s never seen anything so fucking beautiful, even though the idea of touching Waylon’s erection fills him with a strange, overwhelming dread in the same moment it makes him ache. 

“Please,” Waylon groans, shaking, “I’ll be so good.”

Eddie rears back and lays the belt against Waylon’s ass again, three times in quick succession, and Waylon lets out a helpless little sob. Eddie can cup the whole of one of Waylon’s generous ass cheeks in one hand, so he parts Waylon with a hand covering each buttock, rubbing his thumbs over the pretty pink hole behind Waylon’s taut ballsack.

He wants to bury his face there until Waylon’s dripping for him, so he does, pushes his face right into the soft crevice of Waylon’s ass and fucks his tongue right into Waylon’s hole without giving Waylon time to adjust to the feel of him pushing past the tight ring of muscle.

“Holy fuck, Eddie,” Waylon whines, collapsing forward. Eddie follows him down hungrily, mouth working eagerly, sucking. He’s never had his mouth on a man before, never put his tongue somewhere so deliciously dirty, and he’s so unbelievably aroused he can’t even speak.

Waylon opens for him, moaning while the tight pink grip of him clenches around Eddie’s tongue, then a saliva-wet finger, then two. Eddie knows his hands are big, but the second finger he works into Waylon’s body looks like it might split Waylon right in half. He makes a ragged sound when he thinks about what it’ll look like to push his cock into Waylon’s body.

“Fuck,” Waylon says, repeating it like a mantra. He’s pushing back eagerly against Eddie’s hand, begging for more. “Fuck, _fuck_ , fill me up, Eddie, sweetheart. Put it in me.”

“Darling,” Eddie groans. Waylon is perfect, his precious little bride — part of him sings for it, buzzing with desire deep in his gut. He’s desperate to get inside but he’s still got enough presence of mind left to not want to hurt Waylon unintentionally, so he fumbles for the bottle of lube he abandoned on his bedside table. “Darling, be patient, let me open you up first.”

“Hurry, Eddie,” Waylon says into the duvet, pressing back when Eddie squeezes the gel into the crack of Waylon’s ass and pushes now-slick fingers back into Waylon all the way up to the third knuckle. “Your cock is going to split me open. I want it so fucking bad.”

He works Waylon until Waylon is quivering with it, finds a spot that makes Waylon’s legs shake, and then pulls Waylon back onto his cock, pushing inside slowly — _so_ slow, _so_ careful with his pretty little wife. He wants Waylon to feel _good_ , wants to take care of Waylon so badly.

He’ll be a good husband, take care of his precious darling, impale Waylon on his cock until they’re both exhausted and Waylon is full of his seed. He moves a little and Waylon is wiggling backwards, making breathy, pained little noises.

It must hurt, it _must_. Eddie can see with his own two eyes how he’s stretching Waylon, but Waylon is squirming so eagerly that Eddie lifts Waylon to help him along, maneuvers Waylon right into his lap. Eddie cradles him like a bride being carried over the threshold, one of Waylon’s arms slung across his shoulders, and just the thought of him carrying Waylon over a different kind of threshold makes Eddie go hot all over.

Like this, Waylon can’t do anything except sink down onto Eddie’s cock, slung helplessly against Eddie’s chest. He’s Eddie’s right now, all Eddie’s. Eddie tips Waylon’s face up, kisses his brow and both cheeks.

“Eddie,” Waylon whines, his dull fingernails scrabbling over the shaved span of Eddie’s scalp before he finds purchase in Eddie’s hair. He makes a pained sound and tries to rock his hips, so wet and tight around Eddie, so hungry for it, his darling, and Waylon moans through the open-mouthed kiss he pulls Eddie into.

Waylon’s mouth is so soft, so soft and so wonderful, and Eddie feels like he’s stealing when he kisses Waylon, stealing Waylon’s breath, and he begins to thrust up into the warm clutch of Waylon’s body with long, slow strokes, stealing that, too. Waylon’s little gasps turn to whimpers and, when Waylon angles his hips a little, morph into half-swallowed shouts barely muffled by Eddie’s mouth.

“Come on,” he chants, “come on, come on, fill me up Eddie, fill me up, make me yours, Eddie – Eddie, oh fuck, oh please, oh _fuck_ – ”

Eddie cups his hand delicately beneath Waylon’s balls, closing his hand around the entirety of Waylon’s cock. He gives it a little squeeze and swipes his thumb over the underside, rubbing until his finger is slick with Waylon’s precome.

And Waylon spills a hot, delicious, maddening mess all over the bunched skirt of the dress and the back of Eddie’s hand, his cock barely touched. Eddie holds him through it, grips his leaking, come-wet cock as it softens and keeps his strokes firm, and Waylon keens high and pained and shoves himself forcefully down onto Eddie while Eddie’s own orgasm overtakes him with shocking force.

He’s acutely aware that he’s fucking a _man_ , spilling his seed into a _man_ , filling up that sweet, tight little ass that Waylon’s offering him. He yanks at the dress, tearing at the delicate seams attaching the skirts to the bustier, full of the raw need to bury himself deep into Waylon’s willing body, to claim him. _Mine, mine, mine,_ he thinks, _always mine,_ and swallows a sobbing sound of relief.

Eddie can’t tell up from down for a second, dazed, and Waylon is there, pulling away from him for just a moment, just long enough to turn in his arms and cup Eddie’s face in both hands, bringing him down for a senseless, sweet kiss.

“You did so good,” Waylon murmurs against his mouth. “You were so good to me, oh god, Eddie, shh, it’s okay, I’m here.”

Eddie hears himself, the ragged sobs of relief, the sucking breaths, as the rushing sound of his own blood pounding through his veins begins to subside. His face is wet, he’s _crying,_ and Waylon is there soothing him, lowering Eddie to the bed, so sweet, more than Eddie ever thought he’d have.

“Waylon,” Eddie says, overwhelmed. He reaches for Waylon, bundles him close. “Waylon, I didn’t hurt you?”

“Shh, nothing I didn’t want, everything was perfect,” Waylon soothes. His hands are cool on Eddie’s forehead and he presses little kisses against Eddie’s brow and the side of Eddie’s face. “Nothing I didn’t want, I _swear_ , you were so good to me.”

*

Eddie sleeps and doesn’t dream of anything. When he wakes he’s warm, surrounded by the odor of another body: clean sweat and the smell of sex.

Waylon.

He’s still there, burrowed under Eddie’s duvet, naked as the day he was born as far as Eddie can tell. The clock reads 9:38 AM, but no one is scheduled to come by on Sundays. They have the entire day in front of them.

Eddie stares up at the ceiling, trying to categorize and collate his feelings. Turning over the pure momentum that carried them here, to this moment, the sweetness of it all that stripped away the horror and the fear of what came before.

He’s in control now. He can choose. And if there’s some — _desire_ , he reminds himself, not _deviance_ — he’s on solid ground to examine it.

“I can practically hear you overthinking,” Waylon murmurs, pushing himself up onto Eddie’s chest. He’s far less delicate-looking out of the dress, but his tousled hair and his dark eyes are no less lovely the morning after.

Eddie cups Waylon’s cheek, brow furrowed. “I’ve never done this before.”

Waylon turns his face into Eddie’s palm and plants nuzzling kisses. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“It’s not — men don’t do this, where I’m from,” Eddie tries to explain. Not openly, not _good_ men. Not like —

“It doesn’t matter what other men do or don’t do anywhere else. You’re not them,” Waylon says, suddenly somber. “I want this and there’s nothing wrong with you wanting this.”

Eddie puts his hands over his face, but Waylon only gives him a moment before straddling Eddie’s knees.

Waylon’s head disappears beneath the blankets and Eddie doesn’t know what’s happening for a second before he’s engulfed in a jarring heat. His cock, only sleepily interested before, plumps in Waylon’s mouth while Waylon sucks him patiently to full mast and then valiantly works himself around Eddie’s girth until the tip of Eddie’s cock bumps against the back of his throat.

Eddie’s hips jerk up involuntarily and Waylon pulls off for a second, gasping, but goes right back for more before Eddie can stop him.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Eddie says, tugging on Waylon’s hair. “Please.”

He looks down at Waylon, who shrugs off the blanket and stares back with a grave expression. His mouth is wet, jaw loose, dark eyes brimming with tears. “I like it. I want to. I keep thinking about doing this, maybe — maybe let you fuck my throat.”

“You can’t enjoy this,” Eddie says, shuddering powerfully as Waylon bends and sucks him lazily. “Not after — what I did.”

Waylon climbs into Eddie’s lap, straddling him, both hands braced on Eddie’s chest.

“After what Murkoff did, you mean?” Waylon tilts his hips forward and the length of his erection brushes against Eddie’s abs. He takes Eddie’s hands and puts them on his belly. “I really do, though. Thinking about how good you are to me turns me on. These big hands, this big body. How easy you could hold me down but how careful you are with me. I’d let you do so much, have your way with me.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been a man of words and he struggles to unmire himself from his bleak thoughts even on good days. But action seems to be working for them, so he cautiously slides his hands down to cup Waylon’s ass, to spread him.

Arousal jolts through him when Waylon makes a sound of encouragement, still a surprise at how easy it is, how connected Eddie is to the feeling of it. He trusts Waylon. His voice trembles when he asks, “Did you mean what you said last night?”

“Yeah,” Waylon says. “I mean, I can’t do _that_. I can’t give you something that won’t work physically. I’m still a man. But fuck do I like the idea of pretending.”

“Not – I _know_ the other stuff ain’t real. But – you’d let me take care of you?” Eddie asks, cheeks burning.

“Yeah, grab that lube for me, sweetheart, and we can start right now,” Waylon says with a pleased sigh.

Eddie is at his beck and call. He passes the bottle and watches in wonder while Waylon reaches back and slicks himself up, moving slower in the aftermath of their vigorous fuck. “Are you hurt?”

“Just a little tender,” Waylon says, then drags his slick fist up the length of Eddie’s cock. His grin is bright and lopsided, eyes half closed with obvious pleasure, and he bites his lip when he rubs his own cock against Eddie’s bare belly. “Take it slow, make love to me like I’m the only girl there ever was for you. It’ll be so good.”

Eddie’s pretty good at taking directions from Waylon, so he lines himself up obediently, letting Waylon lower himself onto Eddie with a slightly dazed expression. Eddie murmurs his name. Waylon is stunning.

He’s never made love to anyone before, so Waylon rocking gently over Eddie is more than enough to make him feel like he’s fraying. Eddie’s hands ghost reverently over Waylon’s bare body, drinking him in. The mood is different in the raw light of day, a little more ungainly now that it’s not clouded by the frantic, electric need of the night prior, but full of something soft and smoldering, a simmering build of desire that crawls beneath Eddie’s skin and expands to fill the whole of him.

Being with Waylon in the present is as easy as breathing. The arch of his spine with each thrust, the fall of his hair over his eyes, the trickle of sweat that forms below his chin and paths down a chest covered in a dusting of hair — lovely, lovely, so lovely.

Eddie drinks in the sight greedily, unable to grasp in the moment how even someone in the darkest grips of delusion could want to change a single thing about Waylon. He’s perfect, perfect, and he’s letting Eddie fill him up so good. It’s like an old wound on his heart’s been lanced and all that’s left in Eddie right now is pure wonder.

“God,” Waylon moans, “God, Eddie, you’re so fucking big. It’s so good.”

Eddie grips Waylon’s hips and braces his feet against the bed, holds Waylon in place while he fucks slowly up into the warmth of him. He’s so soft, so good, slick and not quite as tight around Eddie’s cock as before, but well-fucked and dripping is just another kind of exciting.

“Let me take care of you now, darling,” he says breathlessly, and wraps his hand around Waylon’s cock, feeling brazen. Even just a few months ago, Eddie would’ve been horrified by what they’re doing, and now he can’t look away.

Time seems to stand still, Waylon’s breathy cries the only notable demarcation. Each even thrust of Eddie’s hips, each tug of his hand that sends a shudder through Waylon’s body, lets Eddie ride an immense wave of pleasure that transcends the full body swell of sensation he’s feeling and fills parts of him up that haven’t ever seen this kind of tenderness before.

His breathing grows labored and tears prick at the corners of his eyes, all of it too bright and too good and too much, but he can’t back away from the threshold. It’s like staring directly at the sun but impossible to look away.

Waylon makes a choked noise and spills over and through Eddie’s squeezing fingers. He has such a pretty pink cock, exactly big enough that Eddie can close his massive paw of a hand around it from base to spurting head, and it twitches in Eddie’s grasp until Eddie milks the last drop from him.

He rolls Waylon beneath him and hitches both of Waylon’s thighs around his waist, delighted by the hiccuping little noises accompanying the aftershocks of Waylon’s release. The quiver of his body as Eddie fucks into him is intoxicating, and it takes only a few unbearably delicious moments for Eddie to come too, pressing kisses to Waylon’s face and cheeks and whispering promises to keep him safe, make him feel good.

Eddie collapses onto Waylon, who only laughs and tugs his hair, unafraid to be trapped under Eddie’s bulk.

“Is it always like this?” Eddie asks when the haze clears, eyes closed as Waylon cards his fingers through Eddie’s hair.

“No,” Waylon says, “it isn’t. It can usually be really good if you try, but most of the time it’s not like this at all. No one’s ever the same.”

Eddie turns that information over and over in his mind, distracted by the sleepy way Waylon moves beneath him. He opens one eye when Waylon gives him a little push, rolling to the side. But Waylon doesn’t seem interested in space and attaches himself to Eddie’s torso like a lamprey, clinging despite the tangle of sweaty sheets and tacky come.

A little mortified by how slimy they are, Eddie says, “Do you want to get a shower?”

Waylon makes a moody sound and buries his head somewhere near Eddie’s armpit and Eddie squirms away with an undignified yelp.

“Are you _ticklish_?” Waylon asks, his head popping up, eyes bright.

“ _No_ ,” Eddie lies.

“You _are_ ,” Waylon says. He climbs over Eddie and has to steady himself at the edge of the bed, yawning enormously.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Eddie says miserably.

“I won’t, but only if you come wash my back,” Waylon says around a stifled grin. “Promise.”

Oh. A shower. _Together_. Eddie looks Waylon up and down, opens his mouth. Closes it, narrows his eyes, feeling bold. “I’ll wash more than just your back.”

They tumble into the shower stall laughing. The water pressure’s nice, and Eddie bought an extender so he could actually stand all the way under the water, but Waylon manages to hog it anyways. He’s a little cold until the stall heats up, but Waylon presses his squirming, slim body all up against Eddie’s, under the entirely transparent pretense of washing him, and Eddie doesn’t mind that at all.

He crowds Waylon into the corner and lets Waylon show him how to kiss nice and slow with tongue while Waylon runs his soapy hands over every part of Eddie’s body he can reach. It’s a lot of body, so it takes a long time, and when Waylon’s finally done, Eddie’s hard again.

Eddie’s embarrassed by his lack of control, but Waylon just puts a hand around him again and pulls Eddie’s head down, talking to him nonstop while he jacks Eddie playfully.

“I like how easy it is to turn you on. I want to get some cute little panties and let you tie me up on your bed and just use me as your dirty little fucktoy,” Waylon says, and Eddie shudders all over, eyes closed, clinging to him, “let you fill me up until I’m so messy and you’re spilling out of me so much you have to plug it up.”

“Waylon,” Eddie snarls, jerking forward, pinning Waylon to the slick tile. “I didn’t know you were — that you were such a s-s-sl— ”

“A slut?” Waylon breathes, squirming in Eddie’s grip, but he isn’t afraid, isn’t trying to get away. “Just for you, sweetheart. All for you, was saving myself for that great big cock of yours — ”

Whatever else he’s going to say is lost in a yelp as Eddie lifts him up against the wall and thrusts his hips up between Waylon’s legs. The angle is horrible, and Eddie is just seeking blindly, but the head of his cock catches on the swollen rim of Waylon’s ass, and with a lucky maneuver he’s pushing in, in, in, deep into Waylon, who is pinned too tightly to get away from him.

“Waylon,” he says, begs, desperate, “Waylon, let me, darling.”

There’s nothing for him to beg for, though. Waylon’s giving him everything he could ask for, everything he couldn’t dare ask for. It’s all offered up for him to take, so he does, rough and covetous.

It takes him a lot longer than the last two times, and Waylon’s hand snakes up to grip the nape of Eddie’s neck, pulls him down so they’re forehead to forehead, a hand between them to touch himself while Eddie fills him up. In and out, rough and messy, until Eddie’s thighs burn with effort, his back tight, arms aching.

Waylon comes again, feeble spurts over Eddie’s abs, and barely holds himself up while Eddie plunges right through to his own finish.

It’s no shock that Waylon can barely stand when Eddie lowers him to the floor again. He laughs when he stumbles, surprised, asks, “What the fuck, Eddie?”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, but he isn’t really, not that much. He’s too worn out and feels too good to feel bad about it. “Are you okay?”

“Help me clean up,” Waylon says, pushing up against him. “I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

Eddie props Waylon up in the crook of his arm and lathers his hand with the bar of soap. He carefully navigates Waylon’s spent cock, tenderly cups his balls, and circles his fingers around the well-used opening behind them.

“You’re still loose,” Eddie murmurs against the crown of Waylon’s head. He rinses his hand and then spreads Waylon’s cheeks, letting the water wash away the evidence of their coupling while Eddie circles the loosened muscle. “Does it — stay like this?”

Eddie still really doesn’t know what he’s doing or what’s allowed. He’s got the basics, that’s all.

“For a little bit,” Waylon says, shivering even though the water’s still hot. Eddie pushes a curious finger inside, to see what it feels like. “That feels so good.”

“Let me help you to bed, darling,” Eddie says, sympathetic. He was rough, even though Waylon seems to enjoy that.

Waylon can walk on his own just fine, but Eddie bundles him into a huge towel and dries him, standing on the bathroom rug, then swaddles him in Eddie’s bathrobe, which looks about four sizes too large. He practically swims in it. Eddie can’t help himself when he lifts Waylon and carries him to the bed.

He goes down with Waylon, unwrapping the front of the robe like Waylon’s a delicious morsel to be consumed. Eddie kisses a line down the front of Waylon’s torso and hesitates over his groin for only a moment, uncertain, before grazing over Waylon’s cock and balls.

Eddie spreads Waylon to inspect their handiwork, relieved to find Waylon only a little red. He dips his head and laps at the opening to Waylon’s body, tasting the clean warmth of his skin, until Waylon tugs him back up by the hair. “Come back up here before you get me all worked up again. I promise I’ll be just fine.”

“Have you slept with men before?” Eddie asks, bundling Waylon against him.

Waylon hums the affirmative. “Before Lisa, a few times. I was — it was okay. Felt good. I’m attracted to men, but I never found a guy I wanted to stick around for.”

“Is that why you married her?” Eddie asks. He’s not sure he wants to hear the answer to that, but he cares how Waylon feels. “You wanted to marry a woman and have kids?”

“Kids, yes, always wanted them. Woman? I wasn’t picky, but I couldn’t – I couldn’t find _anyone_ I wanted to stick around for, before Lisa. Not other women either. I love Lisa and that won’t ever change,” Waylon says. “She _is_ the mother of my children.”

An unhappy unease settles over Eddie. “You love her, so why are you here?”

Waylon rolls to face Eddie. “Because I’m not _in_ love with her anymore. You can care about people, want all the best in the world for them, even raise a family with them, but that doesn’t mean your lives always line up. Or your dreams.”

Eddie touches Waylon’s cheeks. He wants to kiss him again, badly, but this conversation is too important to interrupt. Eddie wanted a wife and kids, too. “What are you dreaming about now?”

He’s so pretty, Eddie thinks, and even prettier when he smiles at Eddie – his eyes light up, his cheeks dimpling. Waylon has a nice face, a nice smile, he’s a nice man. “You, for a little while now.”

It’s sappy. It’s a sappy thing to say. It makes Eddie want to kiss him, so this time Eddie pushes Waylon back down onto the bed. Waylon is laughing, hand on Eddie’s chest, and Eddie starts laughing too, really happy for the first time in years, and for a little while all the things lurking around the edges of Eddie’s sense of real and fake are just old ghosts.

*

Dr. Ullah welcomes him into her office Wednesday morning. Waylon drops him off at his appointment and parks in the visitor’s lot to go meet someone named Frank Manera. Apparently Eddie’s not the only person that tried to kill Waylon Park that’s earned his forgiveness, though from what Waylon explained in the car, Manera is in the kind of bad way that’ll never get him back out in the world, not even with St. Stephen's white glove service.

Eddie takes a seat across from Dr. Ullah and waits politely while she pours tea for them both. He doesn’t have to tell her how he takes it any more. One cream, four sugars, steeped until it’s just a little bitter.

“Are you sleeping well?” she asks, blowing on her tea to cool it.

He knows what he looks like. He was up late last night and no amount of scrubbing or five o’clock shadow can hide the little bruises on his throat. “Very well.”

She smiles, amused. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“Waylon Park spent two nights at my apartment,” Eddie says, to spare them both from dancing around the subject. She’s earned the right to be curious about new developments in Eddie’s life so Eddie figures he’s okay laying it out for her.

She coughs politely behind her hand to hide her surprise, but her eyebrows shoot up before she can school her face to neutrality. “Forgive me. Did you say Waylon Park?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says and drinks some of his tea even though he’s so nervous his hands are shaking. The cup rattled against the saucer. “I know we talked about it before, but — I’m pretty sure I’m gay. I know it now. Maybe not all the way. But definitely – this.”

“Uncertainty about how to label your sexuality after a new encounter is common,” Dr. Ullah says. “It’s often more helpful to focus on how you feel, or what you did or didn’t enjoy, than trying to make any assumptions and closing yourself off to other possibilities.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. He doesn’t know what the dresses mean, or if that’s how it’s supposed to work with two men, with the fantasy of marriage and the way they talked about Waylon being a girl.

Dr. Ullah lets him have a moment before she presses him gently, “Do you have any immediate concerns you’d like to talk about?”

“We — he put on a dress I made and asked if I thought he was pretty,” Eddie says. “And then — and then I took him to my bed, and he asked me to hit him with my belt. That’s not normal, is it?”

Dr. Ullah tilts her head. “Did you confirm that was something he enjoyed, or are you concerned you may have overstepped a boundary?”

“I asked if he really wanted me to, and he said yes,” Eddie says. “It was — good. He was happy.”

“Are _you_ happy?” Dr. Ullah asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “But the dress. That ain’t right, is it?”

She’s quiet for a long time, like she’s gotta think about it, and Eddie’s frayed nerves unravel a little. He finishes his tea in two gulps and pours himself another cup. It’s done steeping by the time she says, “Do you remember our conversation about the things people can enjoy during sex?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, brow beetling with his consternation. “But is it — because of what happened, is it okay to think that way about him?”

“Do you think that the _only_ way you’re interested in Waylon Park is if he puts on a dress and pretends to be a damsel in distress?” Dr. Ullah asks.

“No,” Eddie says. “Not that. He — we — I touched his – “ Eddie still can’t say it out loud without stuttering, can’t, not yet, “his genitals, and I was nervous. But I didn’t feel – I wasn’t mad. I knew I was sleeping with a man and I – I think I liked it more because of that the second time we did stuff.”

Dr. Ullah smiles and crosses her legs. She smooths down her skirt over her lap and carefully folds her hands, a gesture he recognizes now as allowing Eddie time to interject or add something to his statement.

She says, after a moment, “Sometimes people participate in fantasies that might seem unusual to others, to outsiders who can’t contextualize those very complex desires, and sometimes that might seem dangerous if it wasn’t a fictitious scenario. Sometimes people have a desire to play a role that doesn’t reflect who they are in their daily lives.”

“Playing roles,” Eddie says. “Like it was a game or something. Is that good?” 

“It sounds like you and Waylon successfully negotiated a very tricky dynamic,” she says, “you both played characters that tapped into moments of both extreme fear and a total loss of control and rewrote that script together.”

“Do doctors normally recommend patients sleep with someone who tried to murder them?” Eddie asks. His voice is trembling and he feels a complicated tangle of shame and relief at getting that thought out of his head. It’s a bad thought, a guilty one.

“No good doctor would ever _recommend_ it, Eddie,” Dr. Ullah says kindly. “But trauma is complex and personal, and if this relationship is something that genuinely helps you both, I can’t condemn it. Interpersonal interactions are already complex, even without the extreme circumstances the two of you faced together.”

Eddie fumbles for a way to express himself. “Intimacy between men is – ”

“Perfectly normal,” Dr. Ullah supplies.

“Yes,” he says. “But difficult.”

“It’s hard to watch who you are and who you love being questioned and hated,” Dr. Ullah says. “I can’t promise you’ll ever be free of that in our lifetime.”

“He makes it seem less important,” Eddie says. He opens and closes his hands, balling them into fists. “It’s hard to be angry at myself for what I want when I see that he wants it too. I think that’s better.”

Dr. Ullah smiles. “I’d be inclined to agree.”

He’s getting better. He’s better than who he was six months ago, better by far than he was over a year ago, relearning to walk, seeing dead girls in hospital hallways.

Eddie can picture the clock face. He can recite all the words the doctors give him, do some math in his head. He doesn’t think about his dead father as much.

When he thinks about Waylon Park, Eddie feels like he’s finally got a fighting chance.

*

His aunt dies a few weeks into May. Eddie doesn’t go to her funeral, but he does get a letter from a law firm representing her estate. She apparently gave the land for his parents’ house to him in her will. All he has to do is sign.

Eddie signs. He puts the papers they send him in his filing cabinet and waits.

He’s getting a lot better at waiting until he’s ready.

Spring growth comes late, the cold lingering well into the season, and Eddie uses it as an excuse to stay inside with Waylon as often as possible. But in early June they drive out past the Leadville city limits, chasing a memory. They almost miss the overgrown turn-off where the dirt road leads down to the yard, full of blackberry brambles and patches of neon-colored sulfur buckwheat.

The sky is blue and cloudless, and the mountain wildlife has reclaimed what was once a yard with a few rusting pickup trucks and unmown grass. Fat bumblebees are out in abundance, ignoring Eddie and Waylon when they climb out of Waylon’s car.

It’s so much smaller than Eddie remembers, but he supposes that’s because he’s grown in the last twenty-odd years.

The house is a squat monstrosity of wood slats and bad shingling poorly covered over by rusting tin. It’s set back from the road a good two hundred feet, built partially on a flat rock jutting directly from the foothills.

The elements haven’t been kind; the roof over the front entrance and living room have collapsed, revealing the dark innards of the house. Eddie remembers flowery wallpaper that smelled like cigarette smoke and cooking oil, but what he can see of the walls now a rotting mess smudged black with mold.

Eddie stops by the kitchen windows. There are a few clay pots in the sill, where his mother’s plants spilled from her little workshop. A familiar three tiered wire basket hangs in front of a broken window, where his mother kept her onions and potatoes above the missing stove, now home to an empty bird’s nest.

“This is a mess,” Waylon says. “I’m surprised they haven’t bulldozed it.”

“No one comes out to check on it, probably,” Eddie says. “This place has been abandoned for years.”

“Still,” Waylon says, peering curiously into the empty kitchen. “Kids might come looking for trouble.”

“Kids probably think a place like this is haunted,” Eddie says sourly.

“If you think that’s a deterrent these days, you’d be wrong,” Waylon says. He claps his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Do you want me to leave? I can wait in the car.”

“No, it’s fine,” Eddie says. He puts his arm around Waylon’s waist and pulls him close, half because it would make his father mad and half because he still can’t believe he’s so fortunate. “There’s nothing good left here. I’d rather you stay.”

“What’re you going to do with it?” Waylon asks.

Eddie considers the building, sloughing clapboard siding, rusting and molding in the blistering spring sun. It looks like the carcass of an old monster, toothless.

He turns away from it. “Found a demolition company in the phone book. Feels like it’s time to put it out of its misery.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made so much shit up and spent three whole hours reading about Colorado mining history alone so thank you for stopping by

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to learn more from an actual advocacy organization and not my very inexpert and basic representation of a single fictional person with a very specific set of symptoms that align with canon, the [Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Alliance of America](https://sardaa.org) has a lot of great information and also accepts donations.


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